Launchd will not execute plist. Where am I going wrong? I am trying to create a plist for a unix executable. The executable works perfectly well when I run it in Terminal. However I simply cannot get it to run from launchd. Here are the steps I took:

sudo touch /Library/LaunchDaemons/Parity.plist

sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/Parity.plist

Then I input the following data:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
  <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
      <key>Label</key>
        <string>Parity</string>
      <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
          <string>/usr/local/Cellar/parity/1.5.12/bin/parity</string>
          <string>start</string>
        </array>
      <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
      <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
   </dict>
</plist>

If I run:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/parity.plist

I get the response:

/Library/LaunchDaemons/Parity.plist: service already loaded

Does anyone have any suggestions?

It turns out that the cause of the error was a poorly written plist - <string>start</string> was instructing the exec file to run a start command when initiating the daemon, which was causing it to crash. I erased that line from the plist and now it behaves as I had intended.


Canceling Support for old app Lets assume that I have apps that I have on offer on the Apple App Store. Again, lets assume that I no longer want to support an app and that I am removing the app from the app store.

If my app no longer works or functions correctly after dropping support, is there a way I can suggest deleting the app or are their penalties for having apps that behave this way?

You should sign into your Apple Developer Account and review the License Agreements there.

License Agreements
The license agreements of the iOS Developer Program and Mac Developer Program detail your obligations and responsibilities as a member. The latest agreements can be reviewed in Member Center.
Sign in to Member Center

From the looks of it though, it is pretty generic protect Apple and Apple's Brand and Good Will. If you received any additional agreements when your app was approved to go on the App Store, then review them as well.
From the looks of it though, and from wha articles in trade publications indicate, many developers just walk away from their apps.
As it sounds like you are trying to do the right thing, hypothetically of course, I do recall that one app that I had, Catch Notes, did post a notice to their landing page on the App Store that their product was no longer going to be supported. If you are able to make updates or adds to the page, then that is likely the place to do it. Also Catch Notes no longer appears on the App Store, so there is some process for removal.
Here are some news reports that made the tech sites.
Engadget
CNET
Techcrunch
Check with an Apple representative. There may be a way that the app can be frozen from future downloads, to allow sufficient time for the app's page to be seen by the current user base without expanding it. It is also possible that they are able to message your user base through their records of the App Store purchases. If there is security risk and you feel that the users should completely remove the app, then this is the right thing to do.


Can AppleScript create an Open File Alert? macOS Mojave 10.14.6
I would like to be able to programmatically create repeating calendar events that open a given file when run.  I'm using AppleScript within Automator.  Creating the repeating events is not hard, but I cannot seem to add an Open File Alert.  Is this possible?
I found this old post which was having the same problem and the nearest conclusion was that it's not possible for some inexplicable reason.  Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

Quoting Calendar's AppleScript dictionary in macOS Catalina (but applicable since Mojave) :

"This class represents an 'open file' alarm. Starting with OS X 10.14, it is not possible to create new open file alarms or view URLs for existing open file alarms. Trying to save or modify an open file alarm will result in a save error. Editing other aspects of events or reminders that have existing open file alarms is allowed as long as the alarm isn't modified."

Additionally, having tested other types of calendar alarms in Catalina that do not have similar warnings against them, they too failed to be created.  Whilst the restriction in place for file alarms is most likely motivated by security concerns, the others feel more like a bug.


Windows mklink links and Mac On a Windows AD Server, I have a made a mklink /d to a different file system shown a directory and this all appears to link up nicely for PCs on the network, but the Mac's are unable to follow the link.
How can the Mac follow these links?
On the PCs, I had to run "fsutil behavior set set symlinkevaluation R2R:1" as one the linked file system is to a NAS drive. But I am unable to get to any linked directory on the Mac - NAS or standard RAID.
Is this a just a Mac issue or what is the way around this?

We drop an Alias in the same place as windows shortcuts if you can’t make a symbolic link. That lets all clients have a native way to cross navigate folders.
Connect to the share from any Mac and drop the alias using Finder.
That’s a one time process if we protect that file from deletion or just train people to recreate a proper alias it whenever it goes missing.


How to insert a "pop-out image thumbnail" into a cell in Numbers? I have a Numbers document where I would like to insert images into each cell in one of the columns, in one of my data tables. The images are quite large, so I would like to insert the images as a thumbnail, and have them "pop out" when I click or mouse-over the image, so that I can see the full-size image. How can I accomplish this effect? Is this at all possible?

It was fairly simple to add an image to a cell via drag-and-drop from Finder, by using the "Image Fill" and "Scale to Fill" options. However, in order to see details in the image, I would need to make the cells very large. I'm looking for a way to "zoom in" or make the image "pop out" somehow, either on mouse-over or when I click on the cell.

After a lot of back and forth, trial and error, I have come to the conclusion that this is not yet possible in Numbers, and that Excel is still superior in this regard.


How can I limit the applications a user can access? My brother is using my computer tomorrow and he just needs zoom, how do I force zoom to the foreground until I enter a password? I am not good with apple script, so if you could make it so I can just use it that would be good. I am on a school computer so I do not have admin rights.

You don‘t need Applescript for this.

Open System Preferences
Create a new standard or Managed with Parental Controls user account for your brother
Enable Parental Control on this account
Limit access to the applications you want him to use


Macbook hangs when removing HDMI cable I have a very frustrating problem: when I remove the HDMI cable from my MacBook Pro (i.e. to disconnect my external monitor, and move about with the laptop), the screen just refuses to wake up when I open the lid. It doesn't react to the keyboard or mouse. It's a 2014 model, 13" Retina with Integrated Graphics.

What can I do to solve this problem of the MacBook hanging?

It goes via an HDMI -> DVI adapter, in case that's relevant.

Reverting to El Capitan fixed the problem for me with a mid 2014 rMBP, so it sounds like a Sierra bug. Hoping that the 10.12.4 release fixes it.


How to uninstall Java SE 6 on OS X 10.11? I found an old copy of Adobe CS4 that I had tucked away. I decided to install on my 2014 MBP as I was interested in running Illustrator for some vector images I was wanting to use. It required that I install legacy Java SE 6 runtime. I did so, but looks like I'm still having issues so I decided to get rid of it. I've uninstalled Adobe, but I'm not sure how to get rid of the deprecated java version as I have no other use for it.

There do seem to be guides on uninstalling Java, but I don't want to do this as I still need the current version for other applications.

If you want to remove Java 6... From How to properly uninstall Java 6 on OSX?, do the following:

  Remove the "system" JVM installed and maintained by Software Update

% sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk

  Remove any Java Developer Previews

% sudo rm -rf /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0*.jdk

  Do NOT remove any content in the JavaVM.framework. Those items are
  required by Java 7, 8, 9+ as well as Java SE 6. No modern version of
  OS X has a Java JDK inside there anyway.


How to install, specific version of Java by command line on Mac? It's Possible? It's possible to install an old version of Java by command line in Mac, it's possible?

I am trying install java 1.6.0.17, but i can't find this version for Mac OS. I think it's possible to intall it by command line with terminal. But i don't know the correct way todo this.

It's possible it install various versions of java.

It's not possible to be of more assistance without details on what versions you have and some explanation of what your sticking point is.

Oracle does not distribute 1.6 for OS X so you'll need to get an update from Apple to get that version.

The simplest way would be to install older OS on to virtual machines if you don't run the specific OS X version that was current when Java 1.6 was current.


How can I see my IPv6 neighbors? On a Linux machine, I can see my IPv6 neighbors using the following command (Also see the Linux IPv6 HOWTO:

    # ip -6 neighbor show
    2002:333:333::1 dev eth1 lladdr 00:12:1e:33:AA:BB router REACHABLE

What is the equivalent command on a Mac (currently running Snow Leopard)?

Short answer:

mir:~ itorres$ ndp -an
Neighbor                        Linklayer Address  Netif Expire    St Flgs Prbs
::1                             (incomplete)         lo0 permanent R
2001:470:95e5:1:3583:ead0:514d:d459 e8:6:88:ca:fd:7c en0 permanent R
2001:470:95e5:1:ea06:88ff:feca:fd7c e8:6:88:ca:fd:7c en0 permanent R
...

Longer answer:

You're in UNIX and you have two great commands: man (system manual) and apropos (lookup concepts on manual)

Hence:

mir:~ itorres$ apropos ipv6
Net::CIDR::Lite(3pm)     - Perl extension for merging IPv4 or IPv6 CIDR addresses
Net::IP(3pm)             - Perl extension for manipulating IPv4/IPv6 addresses
NetAddr::IP(3pm)         - Manages IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and subnets
NetAddr::IP::Lite(3pm)   - Manages IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and subnets
faith(4)                 - IPv6-to-IPv4 TCP relay capturing interface
icmp6(4)                 - Internet Control Message Protocol for IPv6
inet6_opt_init(3), inet6_opt_append(3), inet6_opt_finish(3), inet6_opt_set_val(3),     inet6_opt_next(3), inet6_opt_find(3), inet6_opt_get_val(3) - IPv6 Hop-by-Hop and     Destination Options manipulation
inet6_option_space(3), inet6_option_init(3), inet6_option_append(3), inet6_option_alloc(3    ), inet6_option_next(3), inet6_option_find(3) - IPv6 Hop-by-Hop and Destination Options     manipulation
inet6_rth_space(3), inet6_rth_init(3), inet6_rth_add(3), inet6_rth_reverse(3),     inet6_rth_segments(3), inet6_rth_getaddr(3) - IPv6 Routing Header Options manipulation
inet6_rthdr_space(3), inet6_rthdr_init(3), inet6_rthdr_add(3), inet6_rthdr_lasthop(3),     inet6_rthdr_reverse(3), inet6_rthdr_segments(3), inet6_rthdr_getaddr(3),     inet6_rthdr_getflags(3) - IPv6 Routing Header Options manipulation
ip6(4)                   - Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) network layer
ip6(8)                   - Enable or disable IPv6 on active interfaces
ip6config(8)             - Configure IPv6 and 6to4 IPv6 tunnelling
ip6fw(8)                 - controlling utility for IPv6 firewall (DEPRECATED)
ndp(8)                   - control/diagnose IPv6 neighbor discovery protocol
tcllib_ip(n)             - IPv4 and IPv6 address manipulation
traceroute6(8)           - print the route IPv6 packets will take to a network node

To get more detail about ndp:

mir:~ itorres$ man ndp


How do I succeed setting sublime text 3 as a default text editor on Yosemite? It's a matter of principle for me as I'm struggling with it for a long time. I had this issue back on Mavericks and now on Yosemite 10.10.5.
What I'm trying to do is to set Sublime text 3 as a default text editor for all plain text files (my target were files with . and without extension, e.g .bashrc).

Here is an extract of ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist after I used this Replace Text Edit as the default text editor advice:

{
    LSHandlers =     (
                {
            LSHandlerContentType = "public.plain-text";
            LSHandlerRoleAll = "com.sublimetext.3";
        }
    );
}

In Finder when I press CommandO on e.g .gitconfig file it still opens with TextEdit.
 Any help would be appreciated.

The best results with setting default applications I have achieved with a little tool called RCDefaultApp.

It installs as a preference pane in System Preferences. Open System Preferences > Default Apps and change all the applicable extensions and/or UTIs to Sublime Text.


How can I make all animations instant? How do I get rid of these kinds of animations:

Switching spaces
Minimising windows
Entering Mission Control
Exiting Mission Control

in macOS Catalina 10.15?

Something which might help (but it doesn't go all the way) is to enable the 'Reduce motion' option in the System Preferences section Accessibility:


Remove margin reserved for dock when dock is hidden I upgraded to Sierra. Previously, when I had the dock hidden, windows could be resized to take up almost all of the screen; a 4 pixel margin was reserved for the dock. Now, when I have the dock hidden, the margin is no longer just 4 pixels: the margin is the size as the dock. I hid the dock to make extra space for my windows, but it seems like that benefit of hiding the dock is lost. Is there a way to revert to the previous behavior?

Reboot.
Sometimes, settings don't come into effect until you reboot your device, especially if it's a system-wide preference. Rebooting tends to solve most System Preferences-related issues.
Also, System Preferences may not tell you to reboot your device, but if something isn't working, restarting should solve your issue.
If Dock settings do not work correctly, a reboot should solve your problem.


multi-home High Sierra and block one address? I run Apache on my Macbook Pro for off-line use of a web app.  But for "self-defense" online, I use /etc/hosts to map certain hostnames to 127.0.0.1 which means if a webpage causes a GET to one of these, it hits my local webserver instead.

I would rather they do nothing.  If I point them to an address that I know is unreachable, e.g., 10.250.250.250, then a poorly designed web page may not render until the GET times out.

In 10.13.4, how do I (Can I) point them to a separate private address that will be handled on the Macbook and set that address to immediately reject everything?  (Without changing how loopback behaves.)

(By the way, Apple documentation has long claimed that /etc/hosts is only used in single-user mode.  I have found that to be false on many versions of OS X/MacOS.)

The easiest way to achieve a guaranteed reject with no timeout is to use a broadcast address 255.255.255.255. Edit your /etc/hosts file and for hosts that you want request rejected put an entry such as:

255.255.255.255  rejectedhost.com
255.255.255.255  someotherhost.net

This free and simple technique can also be used to block out advertisement hosts on ad-ridden or popup-ridden web pages.


Howto change the Apple logo after Filevault login? I managed to change the Apple logo that comes up before my APFS encrypted Filevault disk is accessible from...

(That's a white apple on a transparent background).

... to...

After logging in and unlocking the encrypted filevault disk, my account avatar is shown above the progress bar and about half-way it switches to a grey Apple logo. Where can I find the file that is displayed here? It is not in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/LoginUIKit.framework/, but where else could it be?

I'm running macOS High Sierra on a last-generation white polycarbonate Macbook.

When you have an encrypted disk with FileVault, the system needs to ask for an authorised user to login just after EFI boot. (no news here, just enforcing what most people know)

That logo shows your avatar because your user's avatar is inserted on the EFI boot image/nvram. At this point of the boot sequence, there is no Operating System loaded yet, it's just a simple boot screen to ask the user password [which simulates the login screen of the GUI], but it just a static image containing the user avatars.

After you insert the password, the disk is mounted, and the boot process begins.

After the loading bar reaches about 80% that screen changes to another almost identical, it sometimes blinks at this point. This is the GUI interface being loaded, process called WindowServer. Your avatar is not shown on this phase. To modify it would require to change protected SIP system files (if possible) otherwise you cannot easily change it.

This is how the boot sequence works for Encrypted Filevaut MacOS systems.

If you boot it using the "-v" nvram argument you can get a better view of what is happening "behind" the scene, and also can see the GUI loading moment.

If you open the Console.app and change your avatar on System Configuration you can see the moment it writes you avatar to the nvram [only for FileVault encrypted system this occurs]

My answer is a partial answer just to clarify how this is technically done and help describing how this works. I hope it can be valuable to help you [or others who are reading this] to reach your goal for changing it.


Unable to upgrade iOS 13 for my 5th gen Ipad My iPad is a 5th generation iPad. From what I know it should be able to use iOS 13.

However, I have refreshed a few times in settings and it just says it is up to date to the latest iOS 12 version.

How can I make the iPad updated to the latest iOS 13?

The issue here is that you've got mixed up between iOS 13 and iPadOS.

While iOS 13 has now been released to the public, iPadOS isn't available until 24 September 2019.


Slapd daemon can't start: TLS init def ctx failed: -1 Yesterday I had to restart my Mac OS X Lion Server and after reboot I observed that I do not have any connection to my LDAPv3 on the localhost as well as no users available in Server application.

Next, Server application has showed three outdated certificates. Their names starting with "APNS".

I am not sure whether the issue is connected to those certificates specifically, but unfortunately "slapd" refers to issues with main certificates for my internal domain.

Following is the log from slapd itself:

Oct 27 17:49:57 apple slapd[723]: @(#) $OpenLDAP: slapd 2.4.23 (Jun 24 2012 23:35:56) $
    root@grace.apple.com:/private/var/tmp/OpenLDAP/OpenLDAP-186.5~1/servers/slapd

Oct 27 17:49:57 apple slapd[723]: daemon: SLAP_SOCK_INIT: dtblsize=8192
Oct 27 17:49:57 apple slapd[723]: main: TLS init def ctx failed: -1
Oct 27 17:49:57 apple slapd[723]: slapd stopped.

System log obviously shows:

Oct 27 17:53:19 apple com.apple.launchd[1] (org.openldap.slapd[879]): Exited with code: 1
Oct 27 17:53:19 apple com.apple.launchd[1] (org.openldap.slapd): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

While trying to start slapd from command line (using: /usr/libexec/slapd -d -1), I receive the following message before crash:

TLS: attempting to read
 `/etc/certificates/domain.com.456DACFFC771F8EB2F5A8E0EBB269969B8164097.key.pem'.
execv failed
TLS: could not use key file
 `/etc/certificates/domain.com.456DACFFC771F8EB2F5A8E0EBB269969B8164097.key.pem'.
LS: error:0D07207B:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_get_object:header too long
/SourceCache/OpenSSL098/OpenSSL098-49/src/crypto/asn1/asn1_lib.c:150
main: TLS init def ctx failed: -1 slapd destroy: freeing system resources. slapd stopped.

If I remove TLS configurations options from "/etc/openldap/slapd_macosxserver.conf" then I am able to start the daemon (using: /usr/libexec/slapd -d -1 -f slapd_macosxserver.conf. All my users a back, I can log-in via Workgroup Manager or Server application.

Meanwhile the Server Admin in the Open Directory entry shows that:

LDAP Server is: Running
Password Server is: Stopped
Kerberos is: Running

I have tried couple of things, but still have no idea how to fix the problem.

I'd recommend creating another self-signed cert in Server.app that you can use for securing services (if the others were expired/deleted). By creating the certificate using Server.app, it will automatically be available for other services (like Open Directory).

After you've created a new self-signed certificate, follow steps 6 through 12 in this article (which describe how your SSL certificate can be configured for use with Open Directory). Performing the Open Directory -> Settings -> LDAP -> SSL configuration through Server Admin will write the correct certificate paths into the slapd config file.

Once you've corrected the certificate problems, Open Directory (slapd) should start normally (without you having to start it by hand). If Password Server still doesn't show running after that, you might try a reboot (or check to see if it's generating crash logs or other errors in Console.)

Edit

After modifying the certificate configuration for use with LDAP, it's probably worth checking to see that the machine has provided updated certificate paths to slapd in the slapd_macosxserver.conf file. That is, the unique string of numbers and characters in the key/cert paths should have changed.

To confirm that slapd can access the corresponding private key for the certificate that you're securing LDAP services with, you can check the file at /etc/openldap/slapd_macosxserver.conf...Look for a line mentioning certadmin...That line specifies the command that slapd is using to retrieve the private key from the Keychain. It's possible to perform that command (copy and paste) in Terminal to see if the private key passphrase can be retrieved:

/usr/sbin/certadmin --get-private-key-passphrase /etc/certificates/domain.com.456DACFFC771F8EB2F5A8E0EBB269969B8164097.key.pem

Once you've retrieved the passphrase, see if you can view the private key using that passphrase:

sudo openssl rsa -in /etc/certificates/domain.com.456DACFFC771F8EB2F5A8E0EBB269969B8164097.key.pem -text -noout

When prompted for the pass phrase, copy and paste the value that you obtained in the step above. You should see the private key data output on the screen. This would confirm that:

1.) Your private key passphrase can be retrieved from the Keychain

2.) The pass phrase in the Keychain can be used to decrypt the key

If you are unable to get the pass phrase and unlock the key, it's possible that slapd is not able to either. I believe that the software is using a keychain item in the System keychain named "Mac OS X Server certificate management" with a kind of "application password". The "Account" for that keychain item should be set to the same unique string of characters and numbers (456DACFFC771F8EB2F5A8E0EBB269969B8164097 in this example) that you see in the cert/key paths in /etc/certificates. If you do not see one of these corresponding application passwords in the System keychain, it may be your issue.


iPhone 6s backup and restore from iTunes My iPhone 6S had an intermittent issue with the touch screen that was not responding to touch.

I backed it up using iTunes version 12.6.0.100 to my laptop.
iPhone was on version 10.2.1 when it was backed up.

iStore replaced the phone with one that also had 10.2.1 installed on it.

I tried to restore the backup to the new iPhone and got this message:

  iTunes could not restore the iPhone "xxxx" because the backup was
  corrupt or not compatible with the iPhone that is being restored.

I took the phone and computer to the store and they loaded iOS 10.3.1 and said that this was the problem.

However, updating iOS did not fix the problem.

I still cannot restore the backup to the new iPhone. There is a lot of crucial information in some apps that I cannot lose.

It was suggested that I delete the backup and do a new one, however, as I do not have the old phone, I cannot.

What can I do at this point to restore the backup to my new phone?

Thank you for making sure to note all of the iOS versions and that you updated to 10.3.1 already, since that would definitely be my first suggestion.

I work on software called Decipher Backup Repair, that deals with issues just like this. Sometimes there are glitches in the backup that cause it to be corrupt, and we fix those issues to make a version of the backup that is restorable in iTunes again.

Before getting to our software though, I would double check a few more things, such as trying a different cable, usb port, etc, just in case, if you have extras handy.


An app in iPhone shows in the list of apps sharing documents (list below), but it does not show in the general list (list above) I have an iPhone 4s, iOS 7.1.2, plugged to my Pc. iTunes 12.1.2 is running, and I am seeing the apps in my device.

On the right of the main screen there are copies of the icons as shown in the iPhone.

On the left there are two lists of apps. The top list shows all apps. The bottom list shows the apps that can share documents (and clicking on an app one can see the stored documents for it).

I have at least one app (Foxit Reader) that shows in the bottom list and not in the top one, which is unexpected. I do not know if there are other apps in the iPhone that do not show in the top list.

Any idea of the cause, and how to solve it?

I found another problem, which I think is related to this one.
See https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/198927/itunes-backup-not-all-apps-backed-up

The apps not showing were purchased under a different Apple ID. I had to logout from the current ID in iTunes, and login with the other ID. Then I could Transfer purchases (which included those other apps).


Disk Images no longer show up in Finder's Sidebar I've been dealing with an issue for a very long time, I feel like it used to be a problem randomly, but at least for the last few months it's persistent. The Finder no longer lists mounted Disk Images (.dmg files) in the sidebar. Not for DMGs, nor external hard drives / external media.

The volumes are listed in Disk Utility, and I have resorted to using that to gracefully unmount the disk image. When a volume is mounted, it is possible to access it by it's /Volumes/<Volume Name> path.

In this screenshot you see Finder's Sidebar preferences. You can see that I have a DMG for Clementine open, and Disk Utility confirms that. But the volume isn't showing up on the sidebar. You can also see that the Devices list is expanded, listing my built in volume.

I've done some light searching of options to see if it could be controlled by a plist defaults setting, but I haven't found anything yet.

Why aren't mounted volumes showing up on the sidebar? How can I restore them in the list?

This problem began under Mavericks, and has persisted in Yosemite.

Update.

Just realised that it the CDS,DVDS,  and iPod option in the Finder side bar prefs control  showing of DMGs

You need to check it to get them to show up.

The below may be related to External drives not showing up.

If you drag them of the sidebar they will never show up even when mounted.

To get them back you need to mount them and drag them back on.

This may not be what is going on with your if this is happening to any new items you have never mounted before. But you could try this and see.

Here for illustration a Partition and a DMG being dragged off.
(But this has happened to me without me realising or for some unknown reason.)

To get them back I would need to drag them back.

I go to my device window:

And drag them back to the side bar

And now they are back.


2009 MacBook Air: I can, and want to, purchase an SSD upgrade, but what about Mavericks > Sierra? I have a 2009 MacBook Air with Mavericks. (It’s old, but low miles.) I was about to pull the trigger on buying a SSD to improve performance, but I just now learned that I won’t be able to upgrade to Sierra (?). Only 2010 and later models for MacBook Air are supported according to apple.com.

https://www.apple.com/macos/how-to-upgrade/

I’m floored. Am I really stuck with Mavericks forever? Should I just forget about upgrading the hard drive, since I cannot install Sierra anyway? Is the pitiful 2 GB of RAM (which cannot be upgraded ☹) unable to handle any more OS’s?

What can I do, then, with this perfectly ok, if painfully slow, machine? Has anybody done this against recommendation and had it turn out ok?

FWIW, my primary use for this machine is going to be development work, i.e., self-study, writing & testing scripts in the terminal, etc. I don’t do much gaming, video, or heavy graphics, etc.

Replaicing your rather slow spinning HD with an SSD will certainly make your Mac faster. In fact its the one upgrade that will give you a noticeable speed bump. Other things can give you some speed like RAM (not an option for you) but the SSD is a great upgrade.

That said Apple does not support upgrading to Sierra (though there are hacks that will allow you to do so, which is beyond the scope of this site.)

The only way to see if it is to slow for your intended usage is to try it and see. Personally, 2gb of RAM is considered pretty small these days and I would be hesitant to upgrade the OS because of that. But depending on your use case it might be acceptible with the addition of an SSD which should speed things up considerably.


How to change background of Dashboard in Lion I find the default background of Dashboard in Lion quite boring.  I know how to change the defaultdesktop.jpg for the login screen, and I was wondering if there was a similar process for Dashboard.  Thanks.

Current Background "Texture:"

The corresponding file seems to be located at

/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources/pirelli.png

It's a little piece of the pattern that's tiled:

You can try replacing this with another tile of the same size, or even a larger image and see if it works! Then relaunch the Dock (from Activity Monitor or killall Dock) and it should show up.


How to identify application of hung menu bar icon My Mac sometimes ends in a state with high CPU usage for SystemUIServer. This causes poor performance and decreased battery life.

I can resolve the problem by rebooting the machine but the problem inevitably reappears after some time.

I have found out that this seems to be caused by an application that has an icon in the menu bar. I tried closing all such applications by right-clicking them and selecting their Quit menu item. Now, I notice a gap in the menu line and when I hover the mouse cursor over the gap then I see the infamous spinning beach ball of death.

How do I identify the misbehaving the underlying application – i.e. its name and/or filesystem path?

I am running Mac OS X Lion version 10.7.5

Use the Accessibility Inspector, accessible from Xcode → Open Developer Tool → Accessibility Inspector.

Click "Show" on the "Hierarchy" sub-section (which will show you the Application Name).

Click on the "Target Icon" at the top of the Inspector (Labeled: Start inspection follows point).

Hover over the item and the pane may show you enough information for you to determine what it is. For example, hovering the Dropbox menu bar item shows "Dropbox <version>" under AXHelp, and hovering Little Snitch shows "Little Snitch Agent" under AXTitle.


Notes on a different account (@gmail) and have icloud account. Unable to see the notes on icloud I have notes on my iphone. However the notes are in different account and not on the icloud account and I am unable to see the notes when I login to my icloud account. I have notes back up turned on. Is there something I am doing wrong?

I just found and fixed an issue that I had that may be related.  Somehow in settings on my iPhone I had Notes set with a default account of gmail.  I changed it to cloud and magically everything started synching again.  I have no idea how gmail became the default account as I don't use it for notes, but that worked...


Which is the best alternative for Dreamweaver in Mac? I'm looking for a few freeware alternatives to Dreamweaver that I can use in my Mac that runs on OS X Lion. Shoot the best free, website development applications you know?

Adobe Dreamweaver (for Mac) — $399
As Andrew Larsson said, there is Mac version for latest Adobe Dreamweaver (url is the same as for Windows version).

If it's a tool that you like and already own, but it's not supported by Mac, then you may try to make it work under OSX using Parallels or wine. Some people made different Dreamweaver versions to work on wine (on linux), so you may try to install wine on Mac and then install Dreamweaver in this case.

Fraise

Easiest and most user friendly editor I've found so far is Fraise. It is small and nice, there's no 'workspaces' like in Eclipse and key-combinations like in Eclipse and Vim. It just stays out of your way and allows to edit HTML (there is preview window for it), CSS, and a lot of other file formats. I haven't seen yet any possibility of code-completion, but is it a big deal?

Ironically you may need to build it from source (but it's very and fast if you know how to use git and Xcode)

Quanta Plus
They say that it supports both code editing and WYSIWYG and it definitely works on OSX so you may like it. I've never tried it though.

There are also at least 2 tools based on Eclipse that you can use for web development:

Eclipse IDE for JavaScript Web Developers

It incluses tools for JavaScript developers creating Web applications, including a JavaScript IDE, tools for JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and XML.

As alternative you can install any other eclipse but make sure that it contains Web Tools or install them in eclipse of your choice:

Aptana Studio
It's also based on Eclipse. Besides HTML, CSS and JavaScript it supports server-site scripting languages (Ruby, Python, PHP). You can preview web pages you edit in built-in browser, but I don't know if it is possible to edit webpages visually in Elipse based IDEs.


Remove the battery from MacBook Pro and charge it My friend gave me his laptop which is Apple laptop A1286 (MacBook Pro 15") with the charger but the head of the charger was cut. I tried to charge with another charger but, it doesn't charge.

Now,  I want to remove the battery to charge it with external charger. What I mean is, to use the original charger and use the the (+)wire to the positive side in the battery and the (-)wire to the negative, but when I removed the battery I found many black wires and I didn't know which ones are positive/negative.

If anyone can help me with this issue or any way to charge the laptop without using the home of the charger on my laptop?

If I will charge the battery I will be able to reconnected again and check if it will work or the motherboard is damaged.

The positive (+) and negative (-) terminals on the battery are usually the outermost pins.  Knowing the specific MacBook model is helpful here.

The MagSafe 1/2 charger outputs 16.5 volts, so you are going to need a charger that supplies that amount.

Now, with all of that said.....

I highly urge caution in attempting to hack a DIY charger for your MacBook Pro battery.

If you don't have the necessary electronics diagnostic/repair skills, this is not something you should be attempting.   Besides, there is a more safe and reliable way to diagnose your problems...

You don't need a battery to test out your MacBook.

If you have a MacBook (any model - Pro, Air, etc.) that will not turn on even with the battery disconnected, the problem is with the DC-In board or the logic board itself.  And even before you begin this diagnostic journey, you need to make sure that the MagSafe charger you are using is functioning properly.  A dead AC adapter won't charge any battery regardless if it's in the laptop or not.


Unlock iPhone 3GS iOS 5.0.1 with baseband 06.15.00 I recently updated my iPhone 3GS to iOS 5.0.1, and the baseband got updated to 06.15.00. I jailbroke it using redsn0w 0.9.10b1.

Now no matter what I try, I'm not able to unlock my iPhone. I tried installing Ultrasn0w, but that's not working.

I suspect that this is happening since I didnt preserve the baseband.

I'd be very very thankful if anyone can tell me how to proceed right now. I'm stuck and I'm really in need of help. Please.

I've used this tutorial before. In fact, I'm using it right now to unlock my boss's iPhone.


How to Picture in Picture on mac in any app? I want to use Picture in Picture feature that MacOS has with safari or iTunes but with any app. For example I want to know my cores work with htop in an iTerm instance always on display like this:

but this feature seems to be only in those apps. Is there any built-in app that can do this?

Is there any built-in app that can do this?

There is no built-in way in macOS that can do this. Picture in Picture is available only for watching videos:

Watch video using Picture in Picture on your Mac


What kind of adapter do I need to connect this external monitor? I have a MacBook Pro 2017.  I would like to connect an external monitor, an Asus MZ27AQ Designo 27” Monitor WQHD IPS DP HDMI Eye Care Monitor, but I'm unclear how or if this is possible.  What kind of adapter would I need to connect this type of monitor?

If you register your Mac with iCloud / AppleID and then use the iOS Apple Store app - it shows compatible adapters. Two I know that work well are the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter adapter and another is the Belkin USB-C to HDMI Adapter

https://store.apple.com/xc/product/MUF82AM/A
https://store.apple.com/xc/product/HKQ22ZM/A

Monoprice also has great value and quality adapters in general, but I’ve not tested these specific ones yet.


How to set a custom dynamic wallpaper in Catalina? I tried to set a custom dynamic wallpaper in Catalina as I used to do in Mojave (that worked fine) but my dynamic wallpaper will display the following option as you can see the picture (bugged).

and when I want to change it the "Dynamic" option it's no there!

I tried to find the path of the dynamic default wallpapers and I couldn't paste the ".heic" files where catalina's wallpaper is. I also tried to set a default dynamic wallpaper first and in dynamic mode and then I switch to the custom one and didn't work.

Did dynamic wallpapers format changed in Catalina OS?

How can I set a custom wallpaper in Catalina?

link to the custom wallpaper

There are 4 solutions to this problem.

Easiest

select Catalina wallpaper (System Preferences->Desktop & Screen Saver)
make sure the popup button has selected Dynamic item
close the System Preferences
locate your wallpaper, right click on it and select Services->Set As Wallpaper

Mid (requires tools) Remove Still images from dynamic wallpaper

recreate dynamic wallpaper without still images (remove appearance metadata)
dynamic wallpapers without still images will cause only one menu item to be present and it will automatically get selected
Dynaper has the Remove Still Images Helper tool

Hardest (but best). Place dynamic wallpaper into System/Library/Desktop Pictures/

disable SIP
reboot
open terminal and make System partition writable sudo mount -uw /
copy wallpaper with root sudo cp path/to/wallpaper System/Library/Desktop\ Pictures/
OPTIONAL: copy custom thumbnail (same name as wallpaper) with root sudo cp path/to/wallpaper System/Library/Desktop\ Pictures/.thumbnails/
enable SIP

Hardcore

use Xcode: attach to process com.apple.preference.desktopscreeneffect.desktop.remoteservice and Debug view hierarchy
find the incorrect popup button address
pause program execution
run command [0xaddress setHidden:YES]
resume program execution
modify wallpaper selection to Dynamic

Explanation:

Starting macOS Catalina the system prefers Dark still image on dark appearance. Due to bug 2 overlaping popup buttons are displayed. For images inside System/Library/Desktop Pictures/  the disableCustomPlacement is set to YES (this makes the other popup to be hidden) . All other locations will have this property set to NO (this causes 2 popups to be displayed).

 Derived Properties:
     pictureChangeIsActive:  0
     canSetBackgroundColor:  0
     disableCustomPlacement: 0 >


Loud squealing noise in headphone/speaker followed by computer freezing Every so often when I move my MacBook Pro I get a loud squealing noise through the headphones/speakers and then it freezes.  After a forced reboot, everything is back to normal.

I looked in to the console to see if there could be anything related. Found a system report for a high memory water mark. In the system log, too, there is a bunch of abnormal code 126, and around the time the freeze up happens a few 255 and 110 codes. There are a lot of logs to go through and I have a screen recording of them all if that helps anyone.

Notice: Although it seems unlikely it is possible there is a fault with the machine that could escalate, so if you haven't already please make sure to take a backup of your important documents.

There are a few things you could try:

Perform a PRAM reset by following Apple's instructions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
Perform an SMC reset by following Apple's instructions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1543

Test for a period

Run Apple Hardware Test by following Apple's instructions, running the full/extended test: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201257

Review the results for any obvious hardware faults

Take a backup and reinstall macOS, I can provide instructions here if you get that far, but let's see the results of the hardware fault and screenshots, you can add them to your original post as an edit.


How to transfer folders with many mp3 files in it from pc to itunes? I want to transfer some folders that concludes many mp3 files in them.
Is it possible totransfer folders not a file?

Drag a file or folder from the desktop to the iTunes window. If you add a folder, all the files it contains are added to your library.


OS X 10.11.3 Update, keyboard lagging I don't know how to explain this, but since I've updated my OS X to 10.11.3, keyboard seems to lag. It's extremely subtle, but I am a programmer and an author, and I can feel the difference while coding or typing, and even it's something in the milliseconds-range, it's noticeable and disturbing. I've tried restarting etc, not using many programs at once, but no avail. It's noticeable everywhere, even as I'm typing this question here. I haven't installed anything extra.

I'm in a mid-2014 MacBook Pro with the built-in keyboard. The problem is keyboard language-independent. The problem occurs system-wise, from TextEdit to Safari to Xcode, even inside Windows apps using Parallels.

Is anyone having the same issue?

I would try to disable some keyboard-related applications, if you have any. Such as:

Karabiner
Text Expander (I had one as extension for Google Chrome =)
Punto Swither
etc.

I have just got rid of the keyboard lags on my system by uninstalling all of these (it could be only one of them that caused the issue, but I've shot all three).


How can I reclaim quick-keys from special characters I never use? I love Byword.app and there's a very handy quick key (⇧-⌥-p) that, recently, started showing the uppercase Greek character pi (∏) instead.

I'm not sure what I changed, but it's very frustrating, as I have never needed this character in the past, nor as easily.

I have looked through all the Keyboard and Language preferences, keyboard and character viewers and so on, searched online, and I can not find a way to disable this.

Please, help me get this key combination back!

Thanks!

UPDATE:

I realized I had the Byword key-combo wrong, it's actually ⌘-⌥-p! (doh!) However, I'd still like to use shift-option combos for other things so I'll leave the question up.

Is the ⌥⇧P shortcut a default in Byword? In OS X, shortcuts involving option without command or control as a modifier are for inserting special characters, like the symbol you're seeing inserted. I'm surprised that you're only seeing this functionality recently, as it's been there for many years - perhaps a recent Byword update changed something?

To my knowledge, there's no way of disabling these in System Preferences. You might be able to create a custom keyboard layout that would remove these, but I haven't tested that. I would suggest either setting a different shortcut for the functionality you want in System Prefs. The other (more awkward) way is to take advantage of the fact that the special character shortcuts only do anything in text entry fields. If you don't have a text entry field active, the shortcut should return to it's previous functionality.


"Name" folder appears in the top of every finder window I am running Mountain Lion and notice occasionally a weird thing happening in the finder. I will be navigating through folders and notice that at the top of each folder that there is a folder called "Name". I can't click into that folder and there really isn't a folder of that name that should exist.

I've particularly noticed it when using the column view (not sure what else to call it the view where you see each folder in a column as you navigate through them). It only happens intermittently. Has anyone ever seen this or have an idea of why this might be happening?

I've seen this, can't reproduce it, but it's a glitch in Finder's Arrange By options, and can be fixed by leaving Arrange set to None.


how to ignore all the node_modules folders from time machine How to add the node_modules folder paths to time machine ignore paths.
These folders are like tmp data for backups. These are very dense folders and also slow down TM.
Is there is a txt file which can be appended?
Maybe a command line which can append to the config.

I'm one of the maintainers of Asimov, a free macOS utility for automatically excluding development dependencies (npm, Composer, RubyGems, and more). It was designed for this very purpose ::looks begrudgingly at node_modules/::
The easiest way to install Asimov is via Homebrew (brew install asimov), but the GitHub repo also has manual installation instructions. Once installed, a cron job runs every day to find development dependencies and automatically exclude them from Time Machine via tmutil (mentioned above).
One more benefit is that Asimov checks for the dependency declarations (in the case of node_modules/, a package.json file) before excluding the directory from backups.
Hope it helps!


Change Snow Leopard Terminal window dependant on SSH Server I can find it hard to differentiate between my dev and production server. I am using SSH to connect to the machines (both Ubuntu 10.04), and I was wondering whether there is a way to change the colour of the Terminal window depending on what SSH server it is connected to as I will forget to change the colour for each server...

This blog post provides a script to solve this problem.

#!/bin/bash
#
# ssh into a machine and automatically set the background
# color of Mac OS X Terminal depending on the hostname.
#
# Installation:
# 1. Save this script to /some/bin/ssh-host-color
# 2. chmod 755 /some/bin/ssh-host-color
# 3. alias ssh=/some/bin/ssh-host-color
# 4. Configure your host colors below.

set_term_bgcolor() {
   local R=$1
   local G=$2
   local B=$3
   /usr/bin/osascript <<EOF
tell application "Terminal"
   tell window 0
      set the background color to {$(($R*65535/255)), $(($G*65535/255)), $(($B*65535/255))}
   end tell
end tell
EOF
}

# Host-specific background colors.
if [[ "$@" =~ production1.com ]]; then
   set_term_bgcolor 127 0 0
elif [[ "$@" =~ production2.com ]]; then
   set_term_bgcolor 0 127 0
fi

ssh $@

# Default background color.
set_term_bgcolor 34 79 188


Safari IOS keeps redirecting to https to non-supported http site I'm using Cloudflare, i have set redirect https to http and it just ends up in a redirect loop on Safari,
 Neither removing cache worked. Its very annoying , for a service status page of my web.

But what, it works on Chrome, Puffin and a lot of other thirdy parties browsers..

Safari just tries to redirect HTTP to HTTPS.

Is there any way to stop this?

I had this problem too and posted my solution on the Apple community site:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250107953


How can I turn off quick look on MacOS Catalina? On Mac if you select a file and press the space bar on your keyboard, you can see a quick look of the file.
Is there any way to disable this feature on Mac?
Is there a terminal command or a system tool that can disable Quick-Look on Mac?

Try
sudo launchctl unload -w com.apple.quicklook.plist

I don't know whether you will have to disable SIP to do this, or even if it's possible since Catalina [& can't test].
Found on Apple Forums - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2582860


Cannot connect to App Store due to unactivated SIM? I’ve picked up my new iPhone 6 yesterday. I’ve set up my Apple ID and connected it to my WLAN normally. Internet works, but when I launch the App Store it just says “Cannot connect…”.

Could it be due to the unactivated SIM card? The phone is locked to T-Mobile Croatia, but they haven’t yet activated my SIM card. (I expect them to do this throughout today, but there could be delays.)

The only other cause I can think of is my preexisting Apple ID. I’ve created it last year when I wanted to access some Apple developer specific videos, but I haven’t had an Apple device until now.

Turns out, iCloud Drive (or a related service) messed up my Apple ID in some way. I signed out of my Apple ID, performed a password reset, and signed in using the new password. Now everything seems to work fine.


Turn off blurring on Mac Book Pro with Retina display I think it's already known issue that old applications look blurry on the new retina display, but some look ok, just worse quality. As an example I want you too look on the image below:

It's clearly visible that an upper text uses squares of 2x2 pixels as a one big (non hi-res) pixel. And the image below is 'blurred' so each pixel has it's own color an this allows smother gradients, but for me it's harder to look at the blurred text. So does anybody know if there is a possibility to turn off this blurring and see pixels just 4 times larger?

Alright, it looks like you just have to check "Open in low resolution" check box in application information.

So select an app, press Cmd+I (or got to File > Get info) and check the "Open in low resolution" check box as shown below:

Now everything should look crisp


Deleting an App that refuses to go away I have been trying to delete the United Airlines app from my iPad because I won't be needing it anytime soon.  I thought I had successfully deleted it but a gray version keeps reappearing.  I've deleted the gray version several times with no success.

What can I do to delete it permanently?

I usually do the same thing when installing or deleting stalls, put the device in airplane mode, turn off WiFi, turn off Bluetooth and power it down.

When it starts, delete the app, then enable communications as desired.

When that fails, it’s easy to collect diagnostic information and send to Apple, but usually it’s a stuck network or storage issue that starting with a clean OS start in trolls whatever process was jammed.


How to create pkg which installs files to /usr/local I tried using Whitebox's Packages to create an installer for a LaunchDaemon. The daemon calls a shell script, which itself sources a configuration file.

So what I would like is an installer which installs:

/Library/LaunchDaemons/my_daemon.plist. (This is not a problem).
/usr/local/bin/myscript.sh
/usr/local/etc/myscript.conf

I cannot find how to specify the destination path of /usr/local.

Packages doesn't let me edit the destination of these 2 files, and seems to want to install to "./myscript.sh" and "./myscript.conf", even though it did let me define the absolute destination for the .plist file in /Library/LaunchDaemons.

I guess I could write a postinstall script which creates the directories if needed and copies the files there. But isn't there a better/simpler solution which I am overlooking?

In other words, how can I create a .pkg installer which lets me specify absolute directories for some files, and which creates these directories during the install if needed.

Is a postinstall shell script the only solution, or is there a way to have Packages do things automatically, or is there some other package-creation app which would be more practical for this?

Rather than using a script to create /usr/local and its subfolders, include them as part of the package's payload. That is, create a prototype "local" folder with "bin" and "etc" subfolders, and your script and conf file in them. Set the permissions correctly (root:admin, 755 for all but the conf file, 644 or maybe 664 for that). Then create an installer package that places that whole folder structure in /usr.

Note that if /usr/local (and some subfolders and files) already exist, the installer will simply merge your package's payload with what already exists (i.e. it does exactly what you want).


Why there is no "internal microphone" in my QuickTime player screen recoding audio source? I have 3 macs, 2 of them are fine but one of it doesn't have the Internal Microphone recording option in Quick Time Player. Only the other 2 have.

How can I fix this?

The MacOS are all 10.14.3 Mojave and the Mac is Mid 2015. The other two are 2018 and 2017.

If the microphone is not listed as an Input device in System Prefs, then that's a larger problem than just QuickTime Player: the OS can't access the mic at all.

Assuming you've turned the Mac off and on already, you could try resetting the NVRAM.

You might see whether updating to Mojave 10.14.6 improves matters.

Beyond that, it's likely to be a hardware issue. Is it possible that anyone's opened up the insides for a battery replacement, or other issue? Perhaps they didn't put the cable back properly.


Is anyone else having problems with using htop on High Sierra? Since the upgrade to High Sierra my MacBook is crashing regularly in a catastrophic way that forces me to trigger a hard reset every time.

I suspect htop being the culprit, but I can't tell for sure.

This is what happened about half a dozen times now:

I'm working in either iTerm2 or the Terminal app. Suddenly and seemingly at random iTerm2/Terminal crashes. I'm still able to Force Quit it then.

But then the whole system is left in a really messed up state where I can't start any Apps anymore. Even worse, triggering a restart won't succeed in shutting down the system. My only option left then is to hard-reset the MacBook.

First I suspected iTerm2 and used the Terminal app instead. But exactly the same thing then also happened using the latter. It does not seem to be connected to anything particular I'm doing in the Terminal.

I do have the habit though to always have an instance of htop (version 2.0.2, installed via brew install htop) running in some terminal pane to be able to conveniently monitor processes and CPU/Memory usage while I'm working.

So a running htop instance is the only common precondition for the crashes I can identify.

Because I don't know how to further encircle this problem, I resort to asking here:

Is anyone else experiencing (similar) problems with running htop on High Sierra? And does anyone maybe even have a solution for this?

Suggestions about what I could do to get to the bottom of this would also be very welcome.

I the meantime lots of people have reported the same behavior on GitHub.

Also, I'm 96.73% sure that htop does not crash when started with sudo. I guess that's the best workaround until someone gets around to fix the root cause.


Shared iCloud Folder I have a folder shared with me from another iCloud account. When I log into iCloud from a web browser I can see the shared folder. However when I'm on my Mac and I click on the iCloud folder I can not see the shared folder.
How can a Mac see shared folders in Finder locally as opposed to using a web app / browser?

Usually this happens because your Mac is not fully updated. Ensure that you have the latest updates installed. As far as I recall, this particular feature requires 10.15.4, but upgrade to the latest 10.15.7 and check again.
By design, shared folders appear in Finder, so some delay or data corruption is usually the cause of not seeing the same folder structure in Finder as you see in the iCloud files web app.


Can I bypass iTunes Parental Restrictions on iOS devices? I currently have all my DVDs ripped and stored on a Windows Media Centre box.  I am considering moving over to iTunes, and to grab an Apple TV.  This also would allow me to watch my movies on my iPhone / iPad and through these (via an HDMI adapter) on the upstairs TV.

While I can use iTunes to place parental restrictions on content, I have not yet found out how to bypass this restriction (such as through a password) for 'parental' viewing.  I want content restricted for my kids, but want easy access to higher-rated programs for myself.

Can this be achieved on the iPhone / iPad?  How about the Apple TV?

It seems to be possible to unlock restricted movie content on request through your Apple TV, but through your iPhone or iPad it appears not to be possible. You can read more on iTunes, iOS, and Windows 7 parental controls at the included links and in this Lifehacker article. I hope that this information helps, and let me know if you have any further questions.


MacVim -- switch to tab where file is opened if trying to open an already-opened file Over the course of the day, I often open many tabs/windows open in MacVim, I forget exactly which files I've opened etc.

Then when I try to open a file I have already opened somewhere, I get something like the following:

So I have to go look for where I opened the file before, which is annoying (I have to go through all windows one-by-one to find its tab).

Is there a way to make MacVim just close the tab where I last opened the file automatically when I try to open the file again?

You can remap tabnew to tab drop so you will be switched to already opened files or directed to newly created file.

cnoreabbrev <expr> tabnew getcmdtype() == ":" && getcmdline() == "tabnew" ? "tab drop" : "tabnew"


Correct an Apple ID Child account birthday to a teen account? Apple has different age restrictions in different regions, but most of them trigger on/off based on the age of 13.

If the birthday of a child account is entered incorrectly identifying the account as under 13, notable features (test flight, apple pay, and many others) on iPhone will not be available.

Is there a way to correctly update a child's birthday, which moves them from a child account, to a teen account, and activate these features?

After much time, I now understand more about the changing of a birthdate on a child Apple ID account.
In my region (US and UK) there are bands which define child, teen, and adult. They are....

1-12 Child
13-17 Teen
18+ Adult

Basically, you can't change a birthday from one band to another. Once a child, always a child, until the system thinks the birthday rolls into the next band.
So, once a child account is associated with a birthday under 13, it can not be changed outside the band of 0-12. But can be changed to 12 years, 364 days backwards from today.
So here is the fix: Change the birthday to today - 13 years + 1 day.
Example
Today is August 10th, 2019, so you would use August 11, 2006. Then, the next day the account will "naturally" roll over to 13, and at that point you can change the birthday to anything in the teen band of 13-18.
I did have to also use the parental approval to approve the birthday change. So my steps were ...

log into child account, change birthday.
Log out of https://appleid.apple.com
The change sends an email w/confirmation link to parent(me)
click email link to confirm birthday change
log into parent account and confirm change.

Mission Accomplished


How do I remove an old NAS/FIle Server? First I am new to Mac after 20+ years of Windows so I admit I am struggling. I was an expert on Windows and seem to be lost on MAC.

I have a Macbook pro with Catalina OS. I am trying to remove a bad entry for my Windows NAS server. It is listed under Finder ==> Network  I also notice is shows as a "MAC" not a server.

What started this issue is that I cannot connect using the WINS/NetBios name but the IP works fine. SO I will just use the IP but want the name removed. Yes I am OCD

The contents of the "Network" location is not something stored on your computer that you can delete. Instead it shows the current state of your network.

This means that you have a device that broadcasts its presence to the network letting you know that it is named DJM-NAS-1 via NetBIOS. You can get rid of it here by stopping that announcement on the NAS unit - and this is also where you can change the name of it. The icon is determined by the type of software used on the NAS unit.


How do I fix Terminal.app when my shell has been set to an illegal value? Today I was mucking about trying to uninstall macports when I noticed an error being thrown up whenever I used sudo. I killed Terminal and tried to restart it which failed with the error message "You're are not authorized to run this application" and "The administrator has set your shell to an illegal value." How can I fix this?

…I'd already resolved the issue using Disk Utility to repair permissions…

If repairing permissions clears up the problem, the cause is (almost certainly) that the permissions of /etc/shells were incorrect, preventing Terminal from reading it.

/etc/shells contains a list of valid shell programs, and Terminal checks to see whether the shell for your user account is listed. If not, it produces the “illegal shell” message. If it can’t read the /etc/shells file due to permission issues, it also produces this message.

More rarely, some people have encountered this problem when the /etc/shells file was somehow altered so that it is empty, in which case you’ll need to restore its contents by copying it from a good system, or with a Time Machine restore, etc.

To answer your original question:

If Terminal complains about an “illegal shell” it means that the shell for your user account was not found in /etc/shells.

You can see which shells are considered valid with cat /etc/shells.

You can check which shell your user account is set to use with echo $SHELL, or by reading the user information with dscl . -read "/Users/$LOGNAME" UserShell. Or you can use System Preferences:

Open System Preferences and go to Users & Groups.
Click on the lock and enter your password to be able to read/set user settings.
Control-Click (or Right-Click) on your user to get a contextual menu and choose Advanced Options….

The Advanced Options sheet displays detailed user account information including the shell pathname. You can also use this to edit the shell pathname to re-enable logins if it has been set to a value not listed in /etc/shells.


How to run a Shortcut from a web page in iOS I am trying to use the Shortcuts feature of iOS.
I want to run some simple JavaScript on a web page.
I made a new Shortcut, added "Run JavaScript on Web Page".
The contents of the JavaScript are
alert("hello world");
completion();

I named the shortcut "do hello world".
Now how do I trigger this to run on a web page?
I've googled and it seems that I should be able to click on the "export" button in Safari and run the shortcut from the panel that appears, but I do not see my shortcut in that list.

I needed to do 2 things,

Choose "Shortcut Input" as the value for "Run Javascript on"
Click the 3 dots on the top right and enable "Show in Share Sheet"

Also the alert causes it to timeout, no problem. It was just a test.


Safari 6: Replaces all instances of font X with font Y A certain website that I sometimes frequent for Oracle information uses a lot of Courier New.

This looks horrible in Safari. Is there a way I can always force Safari to substitute Andale Mono or Monaco when a page calls for Courier New?

The HTML in the offending page is not using CSS. The code looks like this:

<font face="Courier New" size="1">

The easiest method would be to handle this with CSS and a browser extension.
Install the User CSS extension on Safari 6 available here: http://code.grid.in.th

Running the extension, create and enable a New User CSS. Name it whatever you want. Under URLs, delete the single asterisk and include the domain for the site you frequent (http://*.oracleinfoworld.com/* or whatever. Place asterisks for wildcards). Now under styles, enter the following:

@font-face {
font-family: 'Courier New';
src: local('Monaco');
}

Click save, and reload the Oracle information site.

This creates a CSS font-face rule for Courier New, replacing it with your local Monaco font. When the site calls for Courier New, your browser will pass in Monaco (or Andale Mono if you change the name). If you really hate Courier New, you can leave the single asterisk in the include section and replace all instances of Courier New with your preferred font. I would not recommend this, as it may have unexpected effects from time to time.

Here's an example of how I would configure this extension.


iPhone 4 does not wake up from being locked My iPhone 4 periodically does not wake up from being locked. I have to wake it by holding the home and power buttons. This is happening a lot more frequently as of late than before. It has the latest OS. It seems quite a few people have the same problem. Does anyone know a solution to this problem? None that I found on the Apple forum seems to solve it.

You could try going by the Apple Store to meet with a Genius (if there is one close enough to you). They have diagnostics they'll run for free to see if something weird is going on with your phone. Make an appointment online.


Does iMessage take up iCloud Storage Space? If I send/receive iMessages, or photos and/or videos through iMessage, will those iMessages take up my iCloud storage space?

I am not talking about iCloud backups. I'm asking that if I do not backup my phone using iCloud, will iMessages still take up iCloud storage space?

No, iMessage and iCloud are (for all intents and purposes) unrelated services. Photos and videos sent or received through iMessage are only stored on Apple's servers long enough to deliver them to all devices you have registered, or seven days, whichever occurs first.


GUID partition scheme If I try to change a partition scheme of a 4 partition HDD from Apple to GUID, iPartition warns me that 'system partition' will be erased. What does that mean? Thanks.

If you have several partitions on that disk, then it is telling you that you will lose the partition that has the Mac OS system installed on it, including all the data on that partition and the Mac OS system you have installed on there.

My advice is that if you don't understand the warnings, then you really should not be in there - it really is SO easy to click a few buttons and lose all your data.


USB-C dock with HDMI graphics on Late 2013 MacBook Pro I have two MacBook Pros, a 2017 model with Thunderbolt 3 ports, and a late 2013 Retina with TB2 and USB3 ports. I use a HP USB-C Dock G4 docking station for the 2017 model. I have two 1080p HP displays attached; one is through HDMI straight to the docking station and the other goes through the HDMI input on a DisplayLink USB 3 adapter and connects to a USB3 port on the dock.

This setup is super convenient for me with the 2017 MacBook Pro as I can charge the device, use both displays and a bunch of other USB peripherals all over a single cable. I'd like to have a similar setup for the 2013 model as well.

When I connect it to the dock via a USB3 type A to type C cable, I get the DisplayLink monitor (which makes sense as it's a USB peripheral) and other USB devices, but not the direct HDMI monitor or charging. My understanding is that I probably won't be able to charge it through the dock since it uses a MagSafe connector, but I'm wondering if there's any adapter I can get to connect both monitors at the dock, without having to switch cables behind the dock?

My displays have 2 HDMI and 1 VGA inputs each. No DisplayPort on either of them. The dock has one HDMI (that I'm using) 2 DisplayPort plugs marked ++ but I don't know if they/re input/output/both/support daisy chaining etc or not.

Question is: What kind of adapter/cable should I get to connect my 2013 MacBook Pro to this dock to get maximum functionality with minimal cable clutter? My first thought is to use an HDMI cable for the direct-to-dock display, a USB A to C cable for all other peripherals and the stock MagSafe 2 adapter for charging. But I'm wondering if there are any Thunderbolt 2 (mini DP style) to USB-C type adapters that would reduce the clutter from three to two cables?

Thanks for the answers..

USB-C is a connector, not an interface.  So, on your 2017 MBP, the "USB-C" ports are actually Thunderbolt 3, which includes displayport over USB-C.  It is this video signal which is able to drive the monitor connected directly to the dock.

One option would be to get a TB2 dock (e.g. https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Laptop-docking-stations/thunderbolt-2-laptop-dock~TB2DOCK4K2DP).  They are pretty rare now that TB3 has taken over, and hence expensive.  You could potentially connect that dock either directly to the 2013 MBP, or to the 2017 MBP via a TB3->TB2 adaptor (I've not tested this, and I know the Apple adaptor is pretty fussy about what it will connect to, but it should be fine as the dock is true TB2 and not mini-DP).  The dock has two display outputs - these are DP, but can be converted to HDMI with further adaptors.  It's gonna be pricey, but would allow you to swap the setup between laptops pretty easily.

If it were me though, I would just keep the dock for the 2017.  Your 2013 has an HDMI port built in, and you can readily convert one of the TB2 ports to HDMI with an adaptor.  Your monitors can each handle 2 HDMI cables.  So you could connect both laptops at the same time, and just switch between them using the monitor input settings.  It's not as elegant, but it will be a lot cheaper.


Default value for `NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat `? What is the default for NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat?  I believe the value is 20, but I'm trying to verify this in order to understand the dynamics of shifting the value.

Most suggestions I see simply tell you to set it to defaults write NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat -int 12, but I've not been real happy with this and as I have a system that takes some time to startup, I don't like the rinse-and-repeat method of rebooting several times to tweak it.  If we know the default value then this will take the guesswork out.

One person went so far as to say that lower values were slower than higher values, but again, I don't trust that.

FWIW, The most common changes I'm seeing for getting back quick repeat settings in 10.12.x (Sierra) are:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 1
defaults write NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat -int 12

The defaults for a freshly installed macOS Sierra 10.12.5 (16F73) are: InitialKeyRepeat = 25 and KeyRepeat = 6.

Please note that if running defaults read NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat before changing the value (either by the GUI or the CLI), then you get an error like this:

  2017-07-04 14:19:02.131 defaults[29186:269276]  The domain/default pair of (kCFPreferencesAnyApplication, ApplePressAndHoldEnabled) does not exist

The step values that correspond to the sliders on the GUI are as follow (lower equals faster):

KeyRepeat: 120, 90, 60, 30, 12, 6, 2

InitialKeyRepeat: 120, 94, 68, 35, 25, 15


Resetting user permissions to their default mode I'm on Mac OS X 10.7.2 with a serious permissions issue that affects most items in my Documents folder, which now require my password for modifications like renaming. The concerned files and folders also seem hidden from Spotlight and therefore do not show up in searches. Both issues are seriously problematic for everyday use.

This is what ls -l gives me for folders:

drwxr-xr-x  109 fr  staff  3706 Nov 22 14:43 Notes
drwxr-xr-x+  16 fr  staff   544 Nov 22 14:51 Bibliography

While the Notes folder is showing fine in searches and allows for password-free renaming, the Bibliography folder does not. My understanding is that the + sign indicates what is wrong here.

Edit: tentative solution below, by removing all ACLs.

Here's the tentative solution I have found to my own problem:

print initial state: ls -l
remove ACL permissions: chmod -R -N /Users/fr/
equalize all permissions: chmod -R 755 /Users/fr/
rebuild Spotlight index: sudo mdutil -E /
print new state: ls -l

The -N option, which is well hidden in the man chmod documentation but mentioned here, removes the + sign that indicate ACLs, just like @ indicates a hidden file extension or a custom icon (as far as I can tell). Using Repair Utilities on ACLs should have done that but did not.

By using chmod with the 755 mode, I lost all custom permissions in the process, but did not need any. Rebuilding the Spotlight index then guarantees that all files get properly indexed. That solution worked, through without explaining how the initial problem emerged.


Getting the longitude and latitude from Google Maps I got a friend who sent me his location via WhatsApp. I am also having the navigation software sygic installed, and it accepts the longitude and latitude to specifiy the location.

For it can I pull the longitude and latitude from google maps and sent them in Sygic?

Yes, you can get your coordinates via Maps app. To do that:

Tap on your current location or drop a pin to a location of your
choosing and then tap.
Tap on the arrow within the blue circle
Tap on share location, choose email
Send it to yourself.
On the email, there should be a link and a vcard. Both of them include coordinate information. However to get the actual coordinates you'll need to copy the link in the email and paste it into, e.g. Notes, to then select just the coordinates.

And you can input the coordinates into the Sygic app.


Apple Music play count stats Is there a way to access play count or stats in general from an iPhone? Either Apple Music stats or local-content specific, doesn't necessarily matter, just can't seem to find anything like that.

Yes, you can see these details with a third party app

Genre
Rating
Track #
Composer
Lyrics
Date Added
Last Played
Last skipped
Play Count
Skip Count

SmartPlaylist on the App Store

SmartPlaylist Website

As of today the app costs $2.99 (in the US App Store). I bought it for the Smart Playlist functionality that I grew accustomed to with my iPod mini/iPod classic.

To see the play count and other statistics follow these steps

Play your desired song in the Music.app
Open SmartPlaylists.app
Tap Menu in the lower left
Select Now Playing
Double-tapping a field like "Skipped" or "Released" will show you the time as well.


Cannot start MySQL - server quit "w/o updating PID file" (PID file missing) I have been researching this problem for two days, and I know there are many other posts about it. But the solutions are always "fix the permissions". That does not solve it for me. I have recursively changed the permissions on the symbolic and original directory trees to 777 and I still get the error. Not only is the PID file not being updated, but the error file is not being written either, though the error message in Terminal when I try to start MySQL says that it is. That does suggest something is preventing processes from writing to the directory, but it's not file permissions.

Here's the full error message:

Starting MySQL
.Logging to '/usr/local/mysql/data/Sheryls-MacBook-Pro.local.err'.
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe: line 198: 11197 Trace/BPT trap: 5       nohup /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld --basedir=/usr/local/mysql --datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data --plugin-dir=/usr/local/mysql/lib/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=Sheryls-MacBook-Pro.local.err --pid-file=/usr/local/mysql/data/Sheryls-MacBook-Pro.local.pid < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1
 ERROR! The server quit without updating PID file (/usr/local/mysql/data/Sheryls-MacBook-Pro.local.pid).

Also, here are my permissions, so you can see this is not the problem:

Sheryls-MacBook-Pro:mysql Sheryl$ ls -laF
total 48
drwxrwxrwx  13 root    wheel     442 Apr 13 14:48 ./
drwxr-xr-x   9 root    wheel     306 Apr 13 14:48 ../
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root    wheel   17987 Dec 27 22:46 COPYING*
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root    wheel    2478 Dec 27 22:46 README*
drwxrwxrwx  40 root    wheel    1360 Jan 24 08:41 bin/
drwxrwxrwx   6 _mysql  _mysql    204 Apr 13 14:48 data/
drwxrwxrwx   5 root    wheel     170 Jan 24 08:41 docs/
drwxrwxrwx  50 root    wheel    1700 Jan 24 08:41 include/
drwxrwxrwx   2 _mysql  _mysql     68 Apr 13 14:48 keyring/
drwxrwxrwx  11 root    wheel     374 Apr 13 14:48 lib/
drwxrwxrwx   4 root    wheel     136 Jan 24 08:41 man/
drwxrwxrwx  39 root    wheel    1326 Jan 24 08:41 share/
drwxrwxrwx   6 root    wheel     204 Jan 24 08:41 support-files/

I'm running MacOS 10.11.6 (El Capitan). Apache is enabled and working, and PHP is enabled and working. Both are the versions that came pre-installed. MySQL is v5.7.21. I've removed and reinstalled it 3 times now. This version does not come with a configuration file.

Should I try an older version of MySQL??

Does anyone have an answer to this problem?

I solved it! When I finally got it to write an error log (needed to fix the permissions for that) and looked inside the error log, I saw it was missing the symbol _clock_gettime(). When I googled that, I discovered MacOS didn't add that symbol until OSX 10.12, and I'm running 10.11 (so as not to break Dreamweaver CS6).

I uninstalled MySQL 5.7.21 and looked for the latest version of MySQL that supported El Capitan (10.11), which turned out to be 5.7.16. I installed that, and now it's running fine.


How do I get detailed SMART disk information on OS X (Mavericks or later) I'm trying to get a detailed SMART status report on the drives in my Mac. I'm not talking about "Verified," I'm talking about the detailed report that's about 100 lines long listing all the vital statistics of the drive.

Anyone know how to do this with diskutil? If diskutil can't do it is there a different free tool I can use?

I recently had the same question and found a command line tool www.smartmontools.org which can be installed via brew:
brew install smartmontools

you can then run it
smartctl -a disk0s3

for the full report where disk0s3 is the disks physical backing which can be found in Disk Utility.app by getting info on the drive. (or via diskutil list on command line.) Here is an example of the output:
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-apple-darwin13.1.0] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Samsung based SSDs
Device Model:     Samsung SSD 840 Series
Serial Number:    S14LNEAD609248A
LU WWN Device Id: 5 002538 5503acd2e
Firmware Version: DXT08B0Q
User Capacity:    500,107,862,016 bytes [500 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4c
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Thu Jun 19 16:34:10 2014 MDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                    was never started.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                    without error or no self-test has ever
                    been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:        (53956) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:            (0x53) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                    Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                    Suspend Offline collection upon new
                    command.
                    No Offline surface scan supported.
                    Self-test supported.
                    No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                    Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                    power-saving mode.
                    Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (  70) minutes.
SCT capabilities:          (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       2379
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       1579
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     0x0013   096   096   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       38
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   0x0013   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0032   100   100   010    Old_age   Always       -       0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  0x0032   100   100   010    Old_age   Always       -       0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0013   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
187 Uncorrectable_Error_Cnt 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0032   059   039   000    Old_age   Always       -       41
195 ECC_Error_Rate          0x001a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
199 CRC_Error_Count         0x003e   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
235 POR_Recovery_Count      0x0012   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1571
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       14090964124

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
  255        0    65535  Read_scanning was never started
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.


Require login to be able to see anything on wiki server? In addition to having wikis, the wiki server built into OS X Server also allows users to host blogs and personal file storage.  By default, it appears that these functions are enabled, even if you are not currently logged in.  Is there a way to lock down the wiki server so that when someone goes to companyserver.com/wiki it doesn't give them access to anything but a login prompt?

Check the following link https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4156010 I have not tried it.


Can I make the Finder label a folder if it contains a file or folder of a specific name? I'd love it if I could somehow make the Finder color-label all folders containing a .git directory so I could tell at a glance if the folder is a Git repo. Any ideas?

Saw this question and realized the answer would be useful to me too. Here's the Applescript I came up with. Copy it into Applescript Editor, and adjust the two variables theSearchPath (first line) and the index number at the end of the set label index line and you should be good to go.

I'm searching ~/projects and coloring the results green in this case.

set theSearchPath to "/Users/Me/projects"
set theResults to do shell script "find " & quoted form of theSearchPath & " -name .git"

repeat with i from 1 to (count paragraphs of theResults)
  set theResult to paragraph i of theResults
  set theParentPath to text 1 through ((length of theResult) - 5) of theResult
  set theParentAlias to POSIX file (theParentPath) as alias
  tell application "Finder"
    set label index of theParentAlias to 6
    -- Set the last value of the above line to correspond with the color you want.
    -- 0 is no color
    -- 1 is orange
    -- 2 is red
    -- 3 is yellow
    -- 4 is blue
    -- 5 is purple
    -- 6 is green
    -- 7 is gray
  end tell
end repeat

Note: It hasn't been written to gracefully handle errors spit out by the find command. As long as you're searching directories you have permissions on, this shouldn't be an issue.


HDR does not look good After upgrading macOS to 10.15.4 on my Macbook Pro 2018, an HDR option shows up for my 4K BenQ PD3220U display. It is even pre-selected.

I can tell that the display is definitely in HDR mode. Unfortunately it does not look very good. The fonts are weird, as if they aren't antialiased. It is especially noticeable in black-on-white text.

Is there a way to improve the HDR mode?

The display is connected through USB-C. Changing resolution to Default for display does not help. I have used this display in HDR mode with ChromeCast Ultra so I know how good HDR can look.

I have now realized that what I was seeing was the typical halo effect of high sharpenss. The image examples in this article illustrates the effect perfectly.

Decreasing the sharpness from 10 (max, the default) to 1 (lowest) improved the fonts immensely. Even 5 is pretty good, but as far as I understand it sounds from forums like the lowest setting is most faithful to what the OS wants to display.


Optimization notice after installing Yosemite After I installed Yosemite I got a notice saying that performance may suffer until my Mac is optimized. What exactly does it mean and do I have to do anything?

It's updating the Spotlight index.
There's nothing to do, just let it happen.


On Apple TV, What does signing in with my TV provider and allowing apps to access the subscription actually do? I thought the idea was that i could go into the Apple TV settings app and sign in with my TV provider, so that I would not need to sign into into apps individually.

What i find is that even after an app asks for permission to access my TV subscription, I am still required to go to another device, navigate to a URL, and sign in with my TV provider password.

Is this working right?

Source:

According to Apple, not all providers or apps support single sign-on. As you've already discovered, sometimes you need to sign-in to an app separately.  This isn't just with Apple TV; I have a Roku and it does the same thing.

Normally, I would paste the names of the TV providers and apps that support SSO.  However, this list is very long and often changes so posting them here doesn't make sense.  Instead, I'll post the links to Apple's site that contain the lists.  That way, it should always be up-to-date.

List of TV providers that support SSO
List of apps that support SSO

Here's how to see a list of supported apps by provider on your Apple TV:

Open the App Store.
Choose the Featured tab.
Scroll down and look for either an icon called TV Providers or an icon of your specific TV provider. Select the icon to see apps that support single sign-on. The list of supported apps might update as apps add support for single sign-on.


iTunes: Moving iTunes Files (Self Managed) I'm trying to move all my music to another drive and I don't let iTunes organize my music for me. I moved the "iTunes" folder to my external and I also moved my Music folder which is also outside of my external but the issue I'm having is when I export the XML file.

In Itunes I went to File > Library > Export Library which exports an XML file.

In the XML file I see a ton of paths that begin with:

file:///Volumes/Data/Music/

So my plan is to change all the files from beginning with that to:

file:///External/Music/

That way iTunes can find my files. I haven't done the last step yet because when I option+click the itunes file and it opens up to the message with an option to "Choose Library..." when I click this option it won't let me select the XML file I just exported but an ITL file in the

iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries/

folder where there are some files with the extension ITL and some that dont have an extension at all.

How do I move my files from my self managed Music folder on my hard drive to a Music folder on my external?

Leave the iTunes folder where it is, or symlink it from there. It's relatively small compared to the actual music data, but iTunes really wants to find it in the default location.

The simplest way to do this would actually be to change the library location then let iTunes organise it for you… however, if you don't do that you will have to change one file, then Import it. iTunes will not simply find your changed file & say to itself, 'hmm, I see, they're all here now.'

Your premise is almost correct, however, you don't export the XML, you change the existing one.

If you've already moved the main ~/Music/iTunes folder structure put it back (or Symlink it) & check all is still OK in iTunes.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the iTunes Library.xml & .itl files to the desktop for safety.
Delete the ITL still in the iTunes folder. iTunes will rebuild this itself at the last step.
Open the XML in BBEdit or similar.
Change the paths, as you were doing - you already noticed that these are, rather irritatingly, absolute paths not relative.
Now - this is the important bit that none of the 'moving my iTunes Library' guides tell you. They mostly tell you to Import this new XML from the Import menu - I've done it, it can take 12 hours & you lose some data.
Save your modified XML file back into the iTunes Music folder.
We now need to make a new broken ITL file.
Open Terminal & enter this touch ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Library.itl That will create an empty ITL file, broken enough for this.
Launch iTunes. It will now notice something is 'wrong' & start rebuilding the ITL file, using your newly-modified XML file. The message is 'Importing ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’  This will take some time, but more like 15 minutes than 8 hours.

You may find some album artwork missing - it never seems to be a truly perfect solution, but your play counts, playlists etc should all survive intact.


Can I use my iPod classic to store photos for my Canon 5D MkII? I have an 80GB iPod classic. I am going on a trip and I have only the iPod, my iPhone, and my iPad. I want to use the iPod to store photos.

Is this possible?

Yes.

You need the discontinued "iPod" camera connector. (not to be confused with the iOS iPad camera connector)

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38187

They are for sale on Amazon (and of course at local thrift shops and electronics shops worldwide).

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Camera-Connector-iPod-White/dp/B000KIRGF4


Is mac sierra protecting me from erasing my hard drive and my sd card when I was trying to erase my sd card in fat16 format i entered the wrong device tree .(e.g. instead of writing disk3s2 i wrote disk2 when i executed the command it said permission denied(which was supposed to erase my whole drive).then when i again tried to format it the right way it again said permission denied.

newfs_msdos -F 16 /Volumes/KIRAN\ USB/dev/disk2s1

So here's my question why am I not able to format my drive and sd card via terminal

Only the super user can normally perform this action, except when using the diskutil command, which incorrectly allows it. The full command you should use would be sudo newfs_msdos -F 16 /dev/disk2s1. You will have to enter your password to continue. Although, I would suggest using FAT32, because FAT16 is likely inappropriate for your SD card assuming you bought it sometime in the past decade. An even better option would be exFAT, assuming all the devices you'll be using this SD card in support it.


PDF rendering - how much is iPad2 faster than iPad? I read that iPad2 graphics is faster than iPad. I would like to know how much is iPad2 faster than iPad at PDF rendering.

According to iPad vs iPad2 Speed Test the iPad2 is about 20% faster than the original iPad both overall and for PDF rendering:

From the article:

  Across the board, we're seeing approximately a 20% average speedup in rendering PDF content. Complex vector content such as maps and blueprints -- which places a heavier load on the graphics subsystem -- is getting the biggest boost, with improvements in the 22% - 32% range. High-resolution scans, which places more of an emphasis on disk I/O and memory, is seeing a more modest 8% - 19% improvement. Perhaps the most interesting improvement is in the multi-threading, where we're seeing speedup increases of up to 10% when doing drawing while other tasks (PDF processing in this case) are running at the same time.


Disk Utility can't find free space and Recovery Mode can't resize I had Linux installed on my Macbook in dual boot with MacOS.

Today, I uninstalled Linux, so I erased the partitions on which it was installed from Internet Recovery Mode. But, now, when I want to resize my Mac partition to its original size (250GB) ( now it is 200GB, Linux had 50GB in total) one of these 2 things will happen:

If I try to resize it from inside the OS, in Disk Utility, it won't find any free space. It will show that I have 200GB available (my current partition) which is not true.
In Recovery Mode, I am able to see the free space of 50GB but I can't add it to my current partition, nor can I format it as another partition. It would get stuck on "Preparing to partition disk".

disk0s2 is the Recovery partition. Don't ask me why it's name is FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF.

Please, tell me that the solution is not to re-install/format everything. Thanks!

Edit:

Your EFI is missing in the partition table - the content should be still there though - and the Recovery HD's partition has the wrong type.

To salvage this you just have to rewrite the GUID partition table:

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode
Open Terminal in the menubar > Utilities > Terminal
Enter diskutil list and with the disk identifier of the internal disk found there: gpt -r show diskX. Usually it's disk0 - below I assume it's disk0. Use the disk identifier you have found in your environment in the commands below!
Unmount the internal disk:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0

Remove all partitions:

gpt remove -i 1 /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0

Re-add all partitions:

gpt add -b 40 -i 1 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 391759648 -i 3 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 391350008 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Verify disk and main volume and repair it if necessary:

diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk0
diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk0s2

Resize the main volume:

diskutil resizeVolume /dev/disk0s2 100% #or 250g

Reboot to your main volume


Yosemite won't list computers in windows workgroup We just bought a new Mini with 10.10 on it (updated to 10.10.1) and it won't list any of the computers in the Windows Workgroup.

I can however ping them by WINS name and connect using smb://EXAMPLE/share/ so WINS lookup seems to function.

However I need to be able to browse the network, and to install a windows printer. When I try and install the windows printer it shows our two workgroups as options, but none of the computers listed in them.

File sharing is turned on (both AFB and SMB) the WINS server is configured for the local Windows 2008 Server and the MacBook Pro with 10.9 works just fine and lists all the machines.

Are you using Windows 7/8 or XP?

I know that when I at home switched from XP  to Window 7, I needed to change the windows workgroup settings...

It sounds like you don't have the proper workgroup assigned.