texts: How to Sync MacOS Applications + Preferences across multiple Macs without OS X Server?

texts:
Will the following work?  If not, can someone propose better alternaives to solve this problem?

Summary problem:  I want to sync multiple MacBook Air's, Pro's and possibly Mini's with the same user-account info, for only one account--call it myuser.  All systems will have the same MacOS major rev.  eg: they're all 10.7 or 10.8 or higher.  I do NOT want to employ OS X Server for the synchronizing.

Summary, proposed solution:  git-sync the Preferences and /User/myuser directory, rsync the Application directories, and use known-working mechanisms (Dropbox, IMAP) to sync everything else.

Details.

Migration Assistant is unreliable for complete copy/sync per this and this and my personal experience.  ChronoSync, per this discussion looks interesting, but I don't know exactly what it's doing for Preferences... and I want to exactly what's going on.  I've also restored TimeMachine backups and found they do not replicate the environment I backed up (huge disappointment).  I'm an experienced system admin on non-MacOS sytems, so consider me a control freak.

I've used git to sync Terminal.app/shell settings in /User/myuser and Thunderbird profile(s) across multiple Macs (git branching for diff Thunderbird profiles on different Macs if/as need be provides useful flexibility).  Despite the lack of depth of git's file-metada management, this has worked well.  I'd like to git-sync (to a "central-repository" server/service like Bitbucket) the following directories across my Macs, employing branches as needed/wanted for unique customizations:

/Library/Preferences
/Library/PreferencePanes
~/Library/Preferences
~/Library/PreferencePanes

(Everything else in ~/Library and /Library appears to be uninmportant or automatically regenerated.)

Then I plan to rsync the following together (git is less useful here due to ease of recreating installed applications plus less practical due to size of /Applications):

/Applications
~/Applications

I realize I may need to close all pertinent applications+processes in order to properly sync the Preferences and Applications spaces and avoid running-process locks and related problems.

I'm not as familiar with any Preference-management-magic that might be in auto-deployment systems like Absolute Manage, Casper, Munki, Sikuli, Salt and similar tools.  Would love to know if there's Preference-management capability/knowledge/know-how in these tools, and if so, how to reuse said knowledge.  Each of the said tools seem to address a broader scope of requirements and present a higher barrier to entry/employment.  I'd rather just start with my very easy to setup git-based method on ~/Library/Preferences (and the like) going.

All of the other directories on these systems--particularly in /User/myuser--are being synchronized via other means, like Dropbox, IMAP email, and similar, already-proven methods like rsync.  I'm less certain rsync will work for copying /Applications, hence the specific call-out above.


texts: Does anybody know an email client for iOS that is password protected?

texts: I am looking for an email client, that when opened, asks for a password before showing email messages. Is there such an app available for iOS?


texts: Line-break after opening quotation mark in iOS 14

texts:
I’ve noticed a behavior lately that I find rather strange. In the middle of a paragraph, if a word coming right after an opening quotation mark (like the word ‘this’ in “this short quote”) doesn’t fit in the line and so has to start a new line, the quotation mark would not be moved along with that word. In other words, the line-break gets inserted right between the quotation mark and the word even though there was no spacing there — see the screenshot.

I must admit that I am a non-native, although quite proficient, English speaker, so I may just be unaware of this grammatical/typesetting rule, but, personally, that would be a weird rule.
Also, I’m not sure how old this bug actually is, maybe I just never wrote up such examples before.
My questions:

Is this actually a bug or is it correct typesetting?
If it is a bug, have you seen it before? Has anyone reported it to Apple before?
If no one’s reported it yet, what would be a more accurate description of the incorrect behavior? Or is my description clear enough?

The screenshot was made in the Notes app, but I’ve also seen it, for example, in iMessage or in Facebook’s Messenger:


texts: How to depict your name on your iPhone's lock screen?

texts:
Before upgrading to iOS 7 from iOS 6, I had the wallpaper of my iPhone 4S lock screen show my name, address, and email address. Just in case somebody found my phone and was willing to see it returned.

After upgrading to iOS 7, I noticed that any notifications to the lock screen will blur the text to practical invisibility, even if I manoeuvre the text on the wallpaper right in between the top line and the time. (Also, but not relevant to the question, the text placed there moves quite a bit around if you tilt the phone.)

In iOS 7, is there a way to leave some details to be easily1 found by the finder of the locked phone? (And I do not mean writing/scratching on the phone or a sticker. I actually came from the earlier sticker-on-the-back solution.)

1The finder might figure out that you can remove the notification, but, even if aware of the possibility, that might not be the obvious thing to do at all.


texts: Assigning different ringtone for non-contacts

texts:
I'm using iOS 9.1 and I want to assign one ringtone for all known contacts and a different one for non-contacts.

I also have another ringtone for a few specific contacts, but in general I want to know if the person who's calling is on my contact list.

How can this be achieved without any jailbreaks or the like ?

I'm also aware that I could just define a ringtone for my entire contacts list. But this is just inconvenient. Every time I add a contact on my Google Account I would have to assign the ringtone on the iPhone.


texts: How do I upload a new version of an app after an App Transfer?

texts:
I know how to transfer an app from one account to another account as I have read the whole procedure for transfering apps from Apple's Documentation.

However, if I want to upload a new version of the app after transferring I need the bundle identifier to be the same as the previous version of the app. I don't have that same identifier.

How can I upload a new version of that app? Do I need to create a new provisioning profile?


texts: Change / correct desktop to display mapping

texts:
I have a Mac Book laptop with Mojave. I use two desks (in different location) each having two Dell monitors that I connect via display port to the laptop.

It works well, however when I switch between my desks the desktop are mapped to different monitors. The windows and icons that were on my left monitor at my other desk are now on the right monitor, conversely the windows and icons that were on the right monitor are now on the left one.

Note that the display arrangement is correct, I can move my mouse from one screen to another in the same way that they are physically set (which is the same at both location).

Hence my question: how do I fix the desktop (which contains windows and icons) to screens to have the window placed in the same way regardless where I work?


texts: How to create a blank RTF file in AppleScript?

texts:
I want to be able to create a new TextEdit document with an AppleScript file. The AppleScript file will then be triggered by a system-wide keyboard shortcut via FastScripts. Specifically, I want the AppleScript to:

Prompt the user to enter a filename.
Create a blank TextEdit file with that filename and save it to a predetermined location. I would like the file to be a rich text document (which is the default type of document created in TextEdit when one clicks "File" → "New").
Set the preset font size of that file to be 18.
Open the file in TextEdit, with window bounds of {160, 10, 883, 639}. (Note that TextEdit will most likely not already be open when the AppleScript file is run.)
Ensure that the blinking cursor is on the second line of the document, so that the user can immediately begin typing. (I hate typing on the very first line in TextEdit, from a visual standpoint, and have to first hit enter every time that I create a new file before I can begin typing.)

Here is what I have:

-- Getting file name from user:
repeat
    set customFilename to the text returned of (display dialog "Save as:" with title "Do you want to create a new, blank TextEdit RTF document?" default answer "")

-- Ensuring that the user provides a name:
    if customFilename is "" then
        beep
        display alert "The filename cannot be empty." message "Please enter a name to continue."
    else
        exit repeat
    end if
end repeat

-- Creating the desired file path:
set filePath to "/Users/Me/Desktop/"
set fullFilepath to filePath & customFilename & ".rtf"

-- Checking if the file already exists:
tell application "Finder"

    set formattedFullFilepath to POSIX path of fullFilepath
    if exists formattedFullFilepath as POSIX file then
        tell current application
            display dialog "The file \"" & formattedFullFilepath & "\" already exists!" & "

" & "Do you want to overwrite the file?" buttons {"No", "Yes"} default button 1 with title "File Already Exists..." with icon caution

            if the button returned of the result is "No" then
                return
            end if
        end tell
    end if
end tell

That's where I am, at this point.

I'm not sure how exactly to approach the rest. I could create a new TextEdit document within TextEdit itself, and then save the file with the custom filename. Or I could create the RTF file outside of TextEdit, and then open the file with TextEdit.

Similarly, the AppleScript can either insert the blank line by keystroke after the file is opened, or the AppleScript can actually write the line to the file when the file is created.

And I have no idea how to set the preset font size for a specific document in AppleScript (without changing the application-wide default font size), or if it is even possible.


texts: Is it normal for MacBook Pro to get extremely hot under idle loads?

texts:
I have a 2019 MacBook Pro and this is about the first Mac I've worked with. The metal case above the keyboard gets extremely hot even when I'm not using the MacBook but have it on. Under normal and high loads that part of the case gets hot enough to burn if touched for about a second.

I can't tell if this is normal considering it doesn't seem to have a fan or a fan moving fast enough to be audible. I am almost wondering if it's intended and the Metal case is used to dissipate heat.


texts:
When I dock my iPhone in the charger (desk stand), it briefly chimes to say it's charging. If it's on silent, then it vibrates instead of chiming. When I go to bed and put the phone in the bedside charger, the noise from either is very annoying.

I want to suppress the vibrate-on-charge. How can I do that?

It's already jailbroken so suggestions in that genre are fine too.


texts: after the big sur update, my desktop is empty

texts:
i went to the users folder in finder and saw that i couldnt even acces my desktop via that way
does anyone know how to fix this issue?


texts:
There's a nice lsappinfo tool that lets you do things like monitor for app switching. I'd like to write a program that runs lsappinfo listen and takes actions when the foreground app changes (specifically, change LED colors on my new keyboard).

Does anyone know what the serialization format that lsappinfo uses is? It looks like this:

$ lsappinfo listen +becameFrontmost forever
Notification: kLSNotifyBecameFrontmost time=10/18/2017 06:58:18.843 dataRef={ "ApplicationType"="Foreground", "CFBundleIdentifier"="com.google.Chrome", "LSASN"=ASN:0x0-0x10010:, "LSFrontApplicationSeed"=3367, "LSMenuBarOwnerApplicationSeed"=3270, "LSMenuBarOwnerASN"=ASN:0x0-0x10010:, "LSOtherASN"=ASN:0x0-0x2f52f5: } affectedASN="Google Chrome" ASN:0x0-0x10010:  context=0x0 sessionID=186a6 notificationID=0x7fb529d00a90
Notification: kLSNotifyBecameFrontmost time=+0.835684s  dataRef={ "ApplicationType"="Foreground", "CFBundleIdentifier"="org.gnu.Emacs", "LSASN"=ASN:0x0-0x2f52f5:, "LSFrontApplicationSeed"=3368, "LSMenuBarOwnerApplicationSeed"=3271, "LSMenuBarOwnerASN"=ASN:0x0-0x2f52f5:, "LSOtherASN"=ASN:0x0-0x10010: } affectedASN="Emacs" ASN:0x0-0x2f52f5:  context=0x0 sessionID=186a6 notificationID=0x7fb529d00a90

I mean, I can parse this with a regex looking for just the field I want, but it would be nicer to be able to just pass it to some library rather than use a hacky regex that might fail if the data looks weird. Is this some sort of standard macOS internals serialization format that I haven't heard of, or is it something they made up just for this tool?


texts:
My MacBook experiences boot up problem.

A normal MacBook could startup properly after pressing the power button and a chime sound would be heard.

But my MacBook (2014 Mid MacBook Pro with Nvidia graphic card) is a different story. After I pressed the power button, I would hear 2 chime sound and the screen is not turning on. I have to force shut down and reboot again. Then everything seems OK again.

This is really frustrating, it happens every time I shut down or sleep my device.

System report from MacBook

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f842be679): GPU Panic: mux-regs 2 3 5f 1d 0 8 severity 3 WS-ready 1 switch-state 0 IG FBs 1 EG FBs 0:0 power-state 4 3D idle HDA idle : NVRM[0/1:0:0]: Read Error 0x00137310: CFG 0x0fc910de 0x00100000 0x00000000, BAR0 0xc0000000 0xffffff9214f8f000 0x0e7290a2, D3, P0/4


texts: After restoring my iPhone from an iCloud backup, all my photos are greyed out. How can I get them back?

texts:
The Problem

I got a new iPhone 6 a while ago, and after restoring from an iCloud backup over wifi, all of the photos/videos in my Photos app show up grey.

It's as if my phone knows the photos should be there, but doesn't have the actual data for them. It also seems to know which ones should be videos, and even has their duration, but no video data is actually present. Maybe it only has the meta-data?

The Photos app doesn't crash if I try to view them; they just show up grey. I've taken new photos since then, and they show up okay in the app, but the old photos remain grey.

Here are some screenshots of the Photos app from my iPhone:

Backstory

Here's some background information to give you some context around my problem.

It's Sept 27 and it's time to upgrade to a new iPhone. For whatever reason, I decided to backup my iPhone to iCloud over wifi, instead of connecting my phone to my computer and backing up via iTunes like I normally do. I'm not sure if it was running iOS 8.4 or 9 at the time I made the backup. I got my new iPhone, which I think was on iOS 9, and I restored it from my iCloud backup over wifi.

The restore seemed successful, but all of apps still said "Waiting...". My phone sat there for hours and hours but nothing changed. Maybe Apple's servers were just busy due to everyone upgrading to the newly released iPhone 6s.  Thinking something was wrong, I wiped it and tried to restore it again from iCloud backup, but the same thing happened.

Eventually over the next day or so my apps finally download. Everything seemed okay until I noticed my photos hadn't turned up yet: they were all grey as pictured above. Maybe they just didn't download yet? I waited a week: still nothing. Finally after about a month of procrastination, I decided to post a question here as you are reading now.

Current Situation

At this point I feel like I did something wrong and iCloud didn't backup my photos. The old iPhone has since been wiped, so no chance to get them back from that phone. At least I have a backup on my computer as recent as June 29, so if I restore from that I'll only have lost about 3 months of photos.

Now what made me decide to post this question instead of just restoring from that backup is the hope that there's something I can do to get them all back. Maybe I'm forgetting something and I can still get all the photo data from my backup.

I'm also curious to see if anyone knows if I did anything wrong when I tried to backup/restore via iCloud. Maybe I had an incorrect iCloud setting; I don't really know. When I made my iCloud backup, it said "Photos" was ON. Did I have to switch "iCloud Photo Library" ON too?

Here's some screenshots of my iCloud settings:

Summary

So at this point, is there any way to get all my photos back into my Camera Roll? Did I do something wrong when I backed up to iCloud?

Here's how I sit now:

My iPhone has about 300 greyed out photos/videos up until Sept 27, and then some "good" photos from then onward that I've taken since I did the backup/restore.
I have a June 29 backup on my computer I can restore to as a last resort if there's nothing I can do to get the greyed out photos working again. If I go this route, I'll lose 3 months of photos from June 29 - Sept 27.


texts: How can I simulate a keypress of 'Insert'?

texts:
I have an application that I'm running through Wine 1.6.2. I need to simulate a keypress of Windows' "Insert" key. How can I do this?

Some background: I'm running a game in Wine that I'm connecting a joystick to with Enjoy2. I'm tricking the game into thinking that joystick actions are keypresses, and it works quite well - except for the one thing in the game that's assigned to "insert".


texts: How do I install an application for just one user?

texts: How do I install an application for just one user, without using administrative permissions or affecting any other users?


texts: How to install Windows 8 on a MacBook Pro with OS X Yosemite, using Boot Camp, without a USB drive or DVD

texts: The title covers most of my question. I am relatively new to the Mac world, and came across Boot Camp, which can dual-boot Windows, which seems pretty cool. I have read through many Boot Camp guides, and know that a USB drive must be used (my new Mac does not have a CD/DVD drive). I do not have any USB drives at the moment that I want to format, and I would like to know if there is a way to do it without a USB drive. I know that it may be harder or impossible to do it without a USB drive, and I can back up my USB, but I would like to be able to install Windows without a USB drive. Alternate question: if I do format my flash drive (64 gb), will I be able to store other files on it, or will it only work with my Windows OS?


texts:
We are in the process of upgrading our servers at our school. Right now we use Safecom to manage our print queues for each user. Each user that is allowed to print can do so via logging in using an RFID printer tag.

What I would like to know is whether there is a similar solution that runs on OS X?

It should be able to:

Allow users to push their jobs to the printer, collecting them later using the RFID tag to log in.
Allow administrators to check how many jobs have been sent, cancel jobs, add users and so on
Allow us to import users from a directory service of some kind


texts: Attaching 3.5" desktop drive to MacBook SATA

texts:
I have a mid-2007 MacBook that, according to the Apple Store, has suffered some liquid damage and requires a new logic board to operate correctly, a ~$750 repair I've been told (would normally be around ~$300 were it not for the "liquid damage"). The unit itself works fine - the only problem I've been having is that the system does not recognize the battery and will not charge it. Curiously, the system can still be powered by the battery and even recognizes when the power cord is detached by diming the backlight, but I digress.

Now that this laptop will likely become a desktop, I'm wondering if it might be possible to attach a desktop drive. I recently purchased a 2TB SATA drive and I'm wondering if it's possible to somehow attach it where the current internal drive connects. Obviously the drive itself will not fit inside the device, but as the unit will spend the rest of its days on my desk, that's not really much of an issue.

My main questions are:

Is this possible?
If so, how would I connect the drive? Would a SATA extender cable work?
Is the SATA port on my MacBook capable of powering a desktop drive? Or should I just get a SATA male-to-female cable and see if I can power the drive through other means (a cheap power supply, for example)

The disk I'm referring to is the Hitachi Deskstar HD32000. Though I couldn't find that exact model on Hitachi's support site, these are the power requirements for a similar drive, the 7K2000 (2TB, 7200RPM, SATA II):

  Power

  Requirement +5 VDC (+/-5%) +12 VDC (+/-10%)
  Startup current (A, max.) 1.2 (+5V), 2.0 (+12V)
  Idle (W) 7.5

From what I've read, 2.5" drives require 5V, meaning that my MacBook obviously is capable of producing it. The specs seem to suggest that this drive seems capable of accepting it instead of the typical 12V - is this an accurate interpretation of the power requirements? Or does it need both 12V and 5V?


texts: Can I change the default music player app on my iPhone? If so, how?

texts: I want to change the default music app on my iPhone from Music to Spotify. Is this possible?  My first guess is that I would have to jailbreak my phone. Is there anyway to do it without jailbreaking?


texts: Does disabling Background App Refresh disable Push notifications?

texts: I just got my iPhone, and before I make any default changes, I just wanted to make sure it doesn't do that.


texts: Does iOS iCloud Drive Files get deleted from the device to free space?

texts:
I'm using Just Press Record on iOS 10.11.1. Since it records audio and keeps a synchronized transcription of the recordings, I'd like to keep all my recordings there. The app keeps the files in its own folder on iCloud Drive. I have an iPhone with 16GB of storage and the recordings will eventually be a lot.

The question: Does iOS "delete" iCloud Drive Files from the device while keeping a version online when the device has low free space (like macOS Sierra does)?


texts: Restoring a Modern Mac Laptop from an External Backup Drive

texts:
Is it possible to "re-clone" a modern mac laptop (i.e. no removable hard drive) from an external (non Time Machine) hard drive?

That is, I'm about to buy a new Mac laptop for the first time in 5 years, and I'm reviewing my backup strategy.  I've typically kept an up to date external hard drive with a recent version of my machine cloned (via a program like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Clone), and if I ran into hard drive failures I could just pop the cloned drive in my laptop and be back up and running right away (restoring files from between the last clone and failure for other, external backup sources)

It's my understanding modern mac laptop don't have removable hard drives -- it's all SSD chips permanently attached to the mother board. It's also my understanding Thunderbolt doesn't have an equivalent to Firewire's target disk mode.

So, if my new Mac laptop fails and Apple gives me a replacement laptop (or I buy a replacement laptop), is there a way to take this fresh machine and re-clone its hard drive so it matches what's on my external backup drive?  Or am I left manually copying files from my backup?


texts: Option to "open with..." on folders in finder

texts:
Is it possible to add the "Open with..." option to Finder, when you do a secondary click on a folder? I want the same behavior as when I'm secondary clicking on a file.

Edit

I do not want to open the contents of the folder with the application, but simply just the folder.

Try dragging one of your folders over all docked applications. Some of them will show that they can open a folder.

Example:

BBEdit - Allow you to browse the contents of the folder in the sidebar and edit each file inside it.
iTerm - Starts the command line inside the opened folder.


texts: How can I prevent opening new tab will get same URL as existing tab

texts:
I have been using Safari on OS X for a while without much issue until I hit the one described in the title.

Let's say I have a YouTube tab open. If I hit the new tab button and enter YouTube, instead of opening another tab, Safari redirects me to the existing YouTube tab. It is not limited to this website, Stack Overflow behaves the same for example.

I could not find anything in the settings related to this and Google didn't help either.

Any ideas?


texts: My iPhone 6 fell down the toilet two days ago but now it works fine. It charges fine when I plug it in, but once I take it out, it shuts off, and tells me there is not enough battery, when it was at a 96 percent. When I plug it in again, it works perfectly and it is at the same percentage that I had left it at. What can I do?


texts: Replace optical drive with hard drive in mid 2012 non-retina MacBook Pro

texts:
Is it OK to replace the optical drive with a hard drive or SSD on Macbook Pro 13-inch mid 2012 (non-retina)? I heard it's buggy.

I have already replaced the hard drive with an SSD and it's now much faster.  I'm thinking of replacing the optical drive with a Hard drive or SSD and use it for secondary storage with a Kit you can get out there.  However, I heard it's not a very reliable fix and disconnects all the time or something like that?  Anyone could please give me any hints on this?


texts:
Mum's Mid 2007 iMac suddenly became extremely slow a few days ago. It takes over an hour to boot, and once booted it beachballs almost constantly in every app. Clicking an icon on the desktop takes a minute or so to respond.

It didn't gradually get slow, she must turned it on one day and it was like that.

I have replaced the hard drive with one that has no data yet. I booted off a firewire 800 drive with an OS X installation that boots up perfectly and is fast with another mac, but on this mac it is just as slow as the drive I assumed was failing and removed.

Booting from a mountain lion recovery partition is similarly slow (I never actually waited for it to boot, but it was taking way too long at the grey apple logo when I gave up).

What could cause this?


texts: Should I install X11 on my Mac Book Pro?

texts:
I have recently purchased a Mac Book Pro (Mavericks 10.9.3) and I'd like to run Inkscape.  After researching the subject I see that I need to install X11, however I don't want to do this if X11 is going to run continuously and chew up CPU resources.  (Inkscape is the only X11 app I am likely to use, I think).

So, if I install X11, will it run whenever the machine is in use?  Or only when an X11 app (such as Inkscape) is running.  And are there other downsides/complications to running X11?


texts: MacOS Mojave: How do I change the default /Users directory for ALL users logging in?

texts:
I've seen this question answered in various forms for other iterations of Mac OS X, but Mojave is proving a bit more challenging. In short:

I have several dual drive systems, (SSD and HDD) with the OS installed on the smaller SSD and a desire for all User directories to be located on the larger HDD. These Macs will be joined to a Windows Active Directory domain to facilitate authentication of users.

Traditionally, the change of /Users directory can be accomplished via the "advanced options" under Users in the Control Center. However, there is one major drawback to this: It must be done for EACH user who logs into the system. I'm looking for a solution that would allow this change to be automatically instated (set as the default) for each NEW user logging in.

In the past, I've skirted around this issue by creating a symlink that points the /Users directory to the new location on the larger HDD. However, Mojave is no longer allowing me to perform this procedure (automatically creating the symlink a directory DOWN in /Users, and when attempting to remove and recreate the /Users directory via symlink, I receive "Operation Not Permitted."). Even so, this solution was non ideal as some programs detest symlinks.

I have not yet attempted to mount the HDD at /Users, as I would prefer to not have the entire directory meant solely for that space. I have read, however, that Mojave and sandboxd throw a fit when this setup is implemented so I have not pursued it yet.

Does anyone happen to know of a way to change the default location of /Users, to change the default behavior of directory location creation for newly created users?

Thanks!


texts: Disabled 'Shake mouse pointer to locate' setting in El Capitan but still get big cursor

texts:
I have been able to disable the shake cursor to enlarge setting by going to Settings > Accessibility > Display > Shake mouse pointer to locate and disabling the option. The only issue is when I try and use the trackpad on Better Touch Tool Remote (iOS), the cursor is large all the time I am using the BTTR Trackpad!

Is there a way how I can fix this problem? I can only disable the big cursor when using the MBP trackpad not the BTTR one.

I am using El Capitan Public Beta build 15A262e


texts: How can I enable the Debug Menu in the App Store for Sierra? The defaults command no longer seem to turn it on.


texts: How to turn off my speakers when no sound is being played?

texts:
I just bought a wattmeter and realized that my speakers are using 15 Watts on idle.

Is there a way to detect that no sound is being currently played in order to turn off my speakers ?

The system sounds are currently being played by my monitor through HDMI, and the audio output of my Macbook Pro is connected to my speakers through a jack cable. Applications that are likely to play sound are: VLC, iTunes, Chrome.

I didn't want to formulate this question as a XY problem, so I'll just enumerate a few ideas that came to my mind to solve this. I'm open to any kind of solution, high or low level.

Turning off the speakers will most likely be done with a relay controlled with an Arduino.

I don't see any obvious way to detect if sound is being played programmatically, but I would be interested to know if this is possible. Maybe there is a system call that I could use to estimate the current audio level ?

The launching of the screen saver is more or less a good indication that it's time to turn off the speakers. It's probably possible to create a Quartz Composer composition that would be used as a screen saver, and also turn off the speakers when it's starting, but Quartz Composer seems to be dying slowly. Who knows if it will still exist in the next OS X release ?

Also, a totally external hardware solution would be great, maybe some kind of circuit that would detect if sound is currently being played, and activate or deactivate a relay accordingly.

The speakers are these ones:

http://www.amazon.fr/CREATIVE-I-Trigue-L3450-Enceintes-2-1/dp/B0000CD7I8

Here are the specs (in French):

Puissance (Totale) Nominale de Sortie: 48 Watts
Puissance Max de Sortie du Système Audio: 100 Watts
Détails du système haut-parleur: 1 x Caisson de basses 30 Watts, 2 x Haut-parleurs satellite 9 Watts

My cheap Chinese wattmeter reads 11.8 W when idle; the same Chinese wattmeter gives me plausible measures with everything that I have measured so far (from a charging 12W iPad charger to a running 2300W boiler).


texts: External display will not come back after power-off while connected to MBP 2017 with Display Port

texts:
My LG 34UC88-B ultrawide display has a weird issue:
  After the laptop goes to sleep - ~50% of the time, when the machine is woken up the display will not wake-up/power on.

My MBP (macOS) thinks the monitor is there but says there is no signal. From the window layout, I can tell that macOS thinks the display is up.

I can unplug/plug the cable into the same port multiple times and it will not "heal" without a reboot. If I plug the cable into a different USB-C port on the MBP - everything is normal.

I've also tried:

Booting with a different PC - not had the issue although it's running Windows 7 in single monitor mode using a HDMI cable.
swapping the cable (did not help)

I really hate having to move cables around every couple of days, so I'm wondering what else I can try?

How can I troubleshoot this further?


texts: Writing emails in different languages in Mail.app

texts: How can I write emails in another language, with a spell check for that language?  Is there a language dictionary to opt for?


texts: Getting Silverlight to work on Mac OS X Yosemite

texts:
I'm trying to get Silverlight to work on Mac OS X, any browser would do. I'm not getting much success at all so far, nor help from the Web.

1) Silverlight + Mac OS X Yosemite

To start with, can anyone tell me if this Silverlight test works for them on Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10.1) ?

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/iis-smooth-streaming/demo/

This should offer a menu and various content, mostly pictures. (As opposed to a big black square of nothing.)

2) Troubleshooting

I'm using a MacBook Pro from Mid-2014. I had Silverlight version 4 installed before but never got it to work (I don't know if this was before or after my Yosemite update.)

I've tried uninstalling and re-installing Silverlight but without success.

To install, I'm merely using the Silverlight.dmg file and its installer to install.

Here is what I'm getting so far:

In Firefox: the official "Get Silverlight" page tells me the plugin is installed ("Silverlight 5 (5.1.30514.0)"), however the test page linked above renders black. FYI, the plugin is set on "Always activate" in about:addons and disabling AdBlock did not help.
In Chrome: I had to use the "Get more extensions" option inside of Chrome to install. However, the test linked above merely offers an "Install Microsoft Silverlight" icon.
In Safari, the test seems to render okay but then I get an error from Safari itself: "A problem occured with this webpage so it was reloaded", leading to the page being reloaded automatically until Safari gives up and tells me that an error repeatedly occured with the page.

Any pointer welcome.


texts:
I would like to set a firmware password on my MacBook Pro, but I only run Linux on it. I know I could download a macOS installer and use that to set the firmware password without installing macOS, but it would be a lot easier simply to set the password from Linux.

Is it possible to set the Mac firmware password from Linux? If so, how?


texts:
I am using an iMac 27“ 2010 and I like to upgrade the Graphics Card. I know the Radeon 6970 from the later 2011 iMac will do the trick, but it would only be a slightly upgrade in performance.

Does someone have any further info which MXM GPU is the latest and will still work with the Mac described above?

thx


texts: Glyphboard copy and paste not working on iPhone

texts:
Glyphboard is a fantastic website I've used for years to get quick access to characters that can't be typed from the standard iOS keyboard. Recently, when I tap a character in Glyphboard to copy it, the character doesn't get copied. Whatever was previously on the clipboard from a previous copy remains on the clipboard. It's as if the copy simply doesn't occur.

I installed iOS 12 on my iPhone SE yesterday, with the hope that would resolve the problem. It didn't. I also note that the copy functionality does work on my iPad Pro (and that Glyphboard retains it's old interface on that device). So, I suppose it may be a Glyphboard bug.

Has any experienced this and figured out a way to get Glyphboard working again?


texts: Mac Mini 2013 and Samsung UE32F4000 32 inches tv resolution problem

texts:
i'm trying to connect using hdmi cable my new mac mini and my new samsung 32 inches tv.

My problem is that i can't find the right configuration on mac and on tv to achive the correct resolution.

If i set from Preference Panel->Monitor->Adapt to screen ( Tv auto size resolution to 1366x768 @60Hz), the resolution is good but element inside the screen are very big as shown in the screenshot belove

If i set resolution to scale->1080p ( Tv auto size resolution to 1920x1
080 / 60p ), elements are with right dimension but everything is shown bad, as shown in image belove:

How can i solve in order to see dimension like in image 1 but resolution like image 1?

Please help me!!!!


texts: Can OS X dump cores in the working directory instead of /cores?

texts: I don't know when it started, but at some point, OS X started dumping cores into a special folder (/cores). This is a pain since they get jumbled together and it's hard to keep track of which core files goes with which execution. Is there an environment variable or special flag I can set to have cores dumped into the working directory (as with other operating systems) instead?


texts: Why the need to update MacOS for iOS 14.5

texts:
I just updated my iPhone to iOS 14.5... Then my Mac (an old Mac Pro running MacOS 10.14.6 Mojave) put up a dialog saying I needed an update for the Mac to work with the iPhone.  So I updated.
But what did that update do?


texts: I cannot delete one text message at a time

texts: In iOS 8, I can't delete one single text. I can delete the whole conversation, but not a single text.


texts:
I'm experiencing playback issues with all media, streamed and local.

Whenever I play a video or listen to music, the audio will occasionally go out of sync with the playback. (A lot more of an issue with video but this also happens with general music playing.)

I'll then have to pause the media, wait about 10 seconds, and hit play again and then playback will be fine until it goes out of sync again 20 minutes later.

I've searched a lot online for this issue, and I can't really find many resources to fix the problem.  Is anyone aware of what might be causing the problem? Maybe a solution?

Hardware: Macbook Pro (mid 2014), Yosemite (10.10.3).


texts: On Catalina, How to not lock computer after screensaver starts and lock computer after lid closing?

texts:
Through settings, is it possible to lock a macbook immediately when the lid is closed, but not lock it when the automatic screensaver appears?
This solution looks like it will create the desired outcome, but it is dependent on installing software.


texts: As many are aware, one can snap a photo using the "volume up" button and even the same button on the earbud volume controls.  I am trying to control the camera remotely and need more distance than the earbuds provide.  How can I generate the signal?  Are the specs available?  Is it a proprietary control or a simple on/off pulse on one of the three conductors through the stereo jack?  I tried a simple 1/8" stereo cable extension, but it doesn't work.


texts: im using Macos Mojave, and some of my Xcode files were locked i guess by the system. So i trashed them and now im not able to clean the Trash. Im getting annoying error The operation can't be completed because the item is in use … Rebooting in safe mode, disabling login items, fixing permissions on disk does not helped. How can i clean my trash?


texts: How can I turn off Macbook screen instantly?

texts:
I use Mac OS X (10.7.5)

I wonder how I can turn off screen only of my MacBook
without closing the lid, without waiting for the screensaver.
The best way I can currently do is just to close the lid or to repeat 'F1' key to dim it.

Is there any shortcut key to do so?
I use this frequently when I read a book or a paper with the laptop turned on (not sleeping) to avoid distraction.


texts: Cannot access Boot Camp partition after OS X reinstall

texts:
I've already used Boot Camp to install Windows on my computer. A while back I had to erase my hard drive and reinstall Mavericks. Once I did that my Windows portion still exist as a volume, but when I got to my Start Up Disk settings it's a folder and not a disk.

I have a lot of my music I created with sound effects and sound kits in FL Studios on that side I don't want to lose.

Do I have to erase and reinstall Windows using Boot Camp or can I fix that issue by creating another bootable disk for my Windows?


texts: Looking for an alternative browser that doesn't leak memory nor my data, and is secure

texts:
lately I have been using Firefox. It works rather well, but given my browsing habits (I never close down Firefox, I rarely reboot my macbook) I end up with an instance of Firefox that eats up 2/3 GB of RAM.

This is obviously unacceptable, and Firefox is well known to have memory leaks here and there. On the long run, "here and there" bogs down my machine and I need to close it down (when it doesn't crash) and restart it, and since I don't save things in the browsers (password, forms ecc) I need to re-login everywhere. :(

On the other hand I am concerned with Chrome and Safari, since I don't want history on my browser, nor want to provide data about a person (me) to third parties (via cookies, history, habits, tracking, whatever). So no Safari, no Chrome.

I don't know about Opera, but I never used it: I have always been curious, and I will download it today.

So here's the question: given all of the previous information, which is the browser safe, not-leaking-memory and that respects my privacy that you would advise me to use?

Thanks!


texts: Damaged and can't be open app error message

texts:
I bought the iBoostUp app when I was using Lion, and one day it suddenly stopped working, I uninstalled it, and yesterday I got Mountain Lion hoping that it would get magically fixed, but it didn't.
Any clues on how to restore the app?

  “iBoostUp” is damaged and can’t be opened. Delete “iBoostUp” and download it again from the App Store!


texts: VMware Fusion virtual machine from a local partition

texts:
When you have a Windows partition on your system, VMware can see and boot a virtual machine from partition.

However, with other OS X and Linux partition, there's no such option. Is there a way to make a virtual machine and "link" the local partition?


texts: Copy with Finder from external HDD to MacHDD(data) fails with zero byte entry and no warnings or copy dialogue

texts:
I have an old NTFS backup disk (simple copy) used 2007-2014. Disk File system is OK.  I can open the files (Canon raw images) from the HDD using applications on the Mac so the Mac talks to the HDD.

Copy files with Finder to the Mac HDD fails silently. No copy dialogue - filenames appear in destination folder initially showing file-sizes but they are zero byte.

I can copy these same files with Finder from the external HDD to an attached Pen Drive and then copy from the Pen Drive to the Mac HDD but I cannot copy directly from the external HDD to the Mac hard drive.

I am using an up-to-date Catalina and up-to-date Paragon NTFS - but that should not be needed to read NTFS. Machine is a late 2012 iMac. Tried multiple remounts (physical disconnection) HDD and restarted iMac.

In hours of searching I have only found one near identical report of this behaviour - on here asked March 28 2013.

My workaround using a second connected disk and copying twice works but I am mystified. No permission errors. As well as running Time Machine I have always kept a manual backup of my photos to an external HDD. I use NTFS and Paragon because I was using a PC before I switched to Mac.


texts: Is iCloud email address different from me.com address?

texts:
I have a me.com address that works on my iPad and on my Mac.

However, I am trying to set up iCloud to sync all of my devices on my Mac using the instructions found here, http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/mac.html

When I get to the second part of step 2 and check the Mail radio-box, I get a pop-up asking me to create an iCloud email address. I enter my me.com address and get this message, "This email address is already taken. Try picking a new one."

Am I supposed to create a SECOND me.com address for iCloud? Should my current me.com address work? Won't 2 addresses just confuse things further? What can I do to troubleshoot?

A side-note. Last night I successfully migrated data from gmail to my me.com calendar and address book. Everything worked successfully on my Mac but I cannot see any of the updates on my iPad. I want these updates on my Mac to push onto my iPad and I wonder if this issue is creating the problem. Everything seems to be working on the individual devices just not on the Cloud.


texts: Would a Displayport-Thunderbolt cable unlock better performance from my external display than an HDMI 2.0 cable?

texts:
I just bought a new monitor (an Asus XG35VQ), but when I try to use my MacBook (Pro 13", mid-2014) with it, I can only get 30Hz on the native 3440x1440 resolution.
At first I thought there was something wrong either with the monitor or with macOS (running Big Sur), but then I realized the issue is probably with the connection.
I want to avoid using the DisplayPort on the monitor to connect to the Mac because there is only one of them in the monitor and it's being used to connect to a different machine. All I have left is an HDMI 2.0 port. I'm using the cable that was supplied with the monitor.
Would it help me get a better refresh rate if I used a Thunderbolt->HDMI cable instead of an HDMI->HDMI cable? Or would it not make any difference?
And what about a Thunderbolt->DisplayPort? Or a HDMI->DisplayPort?
My monitor supports up to 100Hz, but if I can get it to 60Hz I'll be super happy already.
Thanks!


texts: Settings icon deleted accidentaly from iPod touch

texts:
I was just walking around with my iPod Touch and touched the screen accidentally. The settings icon was deleted and I can't recover it. It's very weird because usually you can't delete default apps icons.

I can't find it in iTunes either (after connecting and sync iPod with iTunes)

I would prefer not to lose my current settings like bookmarks in Safari, mail settings...

The iPod is not jail broken and I would prefer not to jailbreak it.

Accessing the settings is enough. I don't really need the icon.

Thanks.


texts: Is there a currently available way to connect firewire to a 2011 MacBook Air besides the Apple Thunderbolt monitor?

texts: If one wanted to connect a firewire peripheral to a 2011 MacBook Air, one could buy Apple's Thunderbolt monitor, connect the monitor to the Air and the peripheral to the monitor. That's kind of overkill, however, for simply connecting a Firewire music keyboard. Does any other method currently exist?


texts: Script or workflow to modify find and replace text in clipboard

texts:
I need give unique names to many, many files as part of my job. I download dozens of PDFs from a research database which all come with the same name (date of download). I have to open the file, select the title, paste it into the filename field, and then go in and manually remove the colon and replace it with a dash.

That last part is really what's killing me since basically every file I download has a colon in the title that I want to paste! What I want is something that will modify the contents of my clipboard so I can just paste it into the naming field without having to manually replace the colon.

In short, I want any ":" in my clipboard to change to a "-" before I paste it.


texts: The current version of the iPod Nano looks a lot like it is running the iOS. Is it actually running a scaled-down version of the software on the iPhones, or is it just a themed version of the classic iPod software?


texts: Is it possible to stop the onslaught of iOS banner notifications coming in one-by-one after disabling Do Not Disturb?

texts:
My question is mostly in the subject line, but I'll add more clarity.
Whenever my device is in Do Not Disturb mode, it supresses all notifications exactly like one would expect.  The issue is when I disable it in the morning either manually, or canceling my wake-up alarm, the notifications that use banners all come streaming in one after the other after the other after the other, etc.
It is beyond frustrating, especially when you're trying to do something like reading the subject of an email in the mail app.  A banner notification comes in and covers it. I swipe it away. Another banner immediately comes in, covering it right back up again! I swipe that one away... Another banner comes in!!
My choices are...

Turn Do Not Disturb back on (delaying the problem until later)
Dismissing all notifications from the Home Screen (so now I don't know what they were!)
Hurl the phone at the wall with sufficient velocity to stop said notifications permanently (always feels like the 'right option' at the time, but it usually subsides moments later.)

Simply put, there is never a case where to me it makes sense to stream them all in one-by-one at the top of the screen like that, especially if I have manually swiped them away.
In a perfect world, you'd get a single banner that said 'While you were away, you received xxx notifications' and tap it to go to the notification center, but I'd be happy with the ability to have it the way it is now so long as I'm given the option to say 'Stop notification banners for already-delivered notifications.'
Point being even if I did want to read them all right then, that is the most inefficient way to do so!
So... does anyone know how to say 'Hey... stop showing the @#$% banners one by one!  It is beyond intrusive and incredibly frustrating.


texts: Apple Macbook SERVICE BATTERY status and where is it stored

texts:
I know for a fact that Service Battery status is stored in macOS files somewhere but not sure where.
Reinstalling Macbook removes this status.
Running Macbook from external OSX removes this status.
Reinstalling OSX and migrating original OSX removes the status.
I'd like to know where is this status hidden in OSX files to remove it without reinstalling??
Does anyone have any idea where to look for it?


texts: I'd like to have all email that I send formatted with my font and size and color, like the way web based email does it. I'd just like to set a default font and have all email I send formatted this way. Can anyone tell me how to do that?


texts:
This may sound a bit silly and I hope it's not off-topic, but... I'm looking for a specific wallpaper that was present in OS X 10.6.7 (an Ansel Adams-style black-and-white landscape with the sun hidden behind some very remarkable clouds). It is no longer present in OS X Lion.

Strangely, it is also not a part of the OS X 10.6 wallpapers pack.

Is there a comprehensive resource from which old OS X wallpapers can be accessed?


texts: I have 2 keyboards on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.8.5. I am trying to configure it so that typing on one keyboard will always use the Qwerty layout while typing on the other will always use the Dvorak layout. What would it take to configure or develop something that accomplished this?


texts: /private/var/db/uuidtext/dsc directory huge size

texts:
I have /private/var/db/uuidtext/dsc directory full of files. Directory size is >100GB and constantly growing. I've deleted all the files and also tried to reboot my mac, but it doesn't help.
I've found little info about this directory, but it looks like that these files are log files, but I'm not able to figure out which process causes such a logging.

Is there any way to figure out what causes this heavy logging?


texts:
I recently bought a large USB drive and stored about 300GB of new data on it.1 I haven't changed anything on the drive, and I'm not reading any files right now. But the drive is active -- I hear the read/write heads flicking back and forth like mad. What on earth is OS X doing?

I assume it has something to do with metadata. But it would be great to have a sense of what kind of metadata is being generated, and whether I can stop it (or would want to). I can see the amount of disk space used slowly creeping up!

1. I'm not sure if it's relevant, but the data consists of page scans and OCRed text from about 350,000 books from HathiTrust, stored mostly in zip files.


texts: Small business using iPads needs to allow access to documents stored on office computer

texts:
I am currently running a small business with Sales people and installers. I have issued each one of them an iPad to take with them on consultations. I am currently looking around for a program that would allow all of the iPad users to access product info documents that are stored on our office computer. But here is the kicker… I want the files to automatically upload to the devices when they return to the office, but I don't want the installers to receive files related to sales, and I don't want the sales people to receive files related to the installers.

I was trying to do some research on how iCloud works, but everything I was able to find was quite vague. I've also thought about drop box, but again I'm not confident that it can do what I'm looking to do.

Is there anything out there that will function the way I need?


texts: See failed login attempts on OSX Maverics

texts:
How can I See failed login attempts on OSX Mavericks?
I cannot look in /var/logs/system.log because I am not an administrator, and /var/logs/secure.log does not seem to exist on OSX Mavericks.


texts: What RSS reader software runs on iOS, Andriod and OS X for someone used to Google reader?

texts:
What software and service functions similarly to an RSS reader which will sync between my Macs, iOS devices, and Android devices?

I am looking for a web view similar to Google reader as well as native client for offline use on all three platforms. I understand there may be no perfect match, so please offer experience and downsides of your solution so others can pick the best solution for themselves.

I'm clearly motivated by Google reader's close date of summer 2013 to find a new RSS platform.


texts:
I am trying to figure out how to change the Kotoeri Romaji keyboard layout to the Japanese default layout, using an external Apple US keyboard.

I'm currently running OSX 10.6.8 on a MacBook Pro 6,2.  I live in Japan and purchased the laptop along with the OS in Japan.  The default language for the OS is also set to Japanese.

Currently I am visiting family in the US and have an external US keyboard which I am trying to use.  Unfortunately the default Romaji layout for this keyboard in Kotoeri is set to "US".  I have checked the "Kotoeri preferences" section but the romaji layout selector does not have "Japanese 106 key" or anything like that listed.  It has a wide range of European layouts.

This is driving me nuts because, although the letters are in the same places, the punctuation on the Japanese layout is different, and after many years in Japan I've grown so used to programming with the Japanese layout that I can no longer touch type efficiently with the US one...

If someone could point me to a way to add options to the kotoeri Romaji layouts I'd be very grateful!


texts: iTunes 12 doesn't show the correct number of photos to be synced and doesn't sync all photos

texts:
I have iTunes 12.2 on a mac book pro with Yosemite, I use Photos app now instead of iPhotos after importing all of its events into iPhoto, plus I recently added around a few thousand pics and videos to the Photos app, the All Photos option in Photos app shows 4372 photos, whereas in iTunes when I select "copy photos from Photos" and "All photos and albums" options under the "Photos" tab it shows 3858 photos as the total number to be synced, where the hell those 500 photos have gone ?

I searched for a solution but couldn't find any, I also checked out this question: Why is iTunes only syncing some of the pictures (seemingly randomly) in each Aperture Event to my iPad? but couldn't also help me ..

any help would be highly appreciated ...


texts: What gesture causes the page to zoom in?

texts:
Sometimes, when I am moving the mouse cursor on my Mac Mini, Safari zooms in the page. I checked the mouse settings, and the only gesture that would cause that should be the double-tap, which is not what I am doing.
I have not noticed the same behavior with other browsers, or applications.

What is causing Safari to randomly zoom in the page I am viewing?


texts: Cisco AnyConnect fails on El Capitan - Unable to locate host scan library

texts: I am facing below error on my MacBook which runs on El Capitan, when I try to connect to VPN it says Posture Assessment failed: unable to locate hostscan library.


texts: How can I install Office from disc on iMac without SuperDrive?

texts:
I bought a new iMac, however it has no SuperDrive. I was given a gift of Microsoft Office 2011 (3 uses) in disc, but I don't have the money for external drive right now.

How can I install this program on my new computer?


texts: How to continue Time Machine backups from a previous computer?

texts:
I had MBP 2015 in the past and used Time Machine on it. Last September, I switched to MBP 16'' 2019 and did a fresh installation / manual copy of most of my home directory files, maintaining the layout.

Note: I wanted to do a fresh installation for various reasons but if I were to compare the filesystems in the end, they are almost the same – my home directory is still /Users/borekb, the folder layout under it is exactly the same, etc.

Now I'm trying to set up Time Machine again but I'd like to continue with my previous line of backups – for example, I want to see last year's versions of files that are on the same path. Also, my first backup on this new Mac should be "incremental" – I'd like Time Machine to compare what is on my current Mac with the latest state of my previous backups (from September 2020) and does a diff as usual.
The key to this seems to be the tmutil inheritbackup command, which I've successfully ran:
$ sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/time-machine/Borek’s\ MacBook\ Pro.backupbundle
Password:
Mounting disk image...
Unmounting disk image...
Inheriting disk image for machine...
Successfully inherited disk image '/Volumes/time-machine/Borek’s MBP 16.backupbundle'

/Volumes/time-machine is a mounted network folder (I backup wirelessly to a Synology NAS) and the command seemed to work well – it did this rename:
Borek’s MacBook Pro.backupbundle → Borek’s MBP 16.backupbundle
I then went to Time Machine UI, selected the time-machine disk, entered my previous password for encryption, etc.:

Everything seemed fine so far.
However, when I start backing up, it does a full initial backup to a new folder inside the .backupbundle that is called after my new computer's name: Borek’s MBP 16. This is what it looks like after I mount the sparse bundle and browse the /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb folder:

I somehow want to tell Time Machine keep using the original Borek’s MacBook Pro folder (the one that was last modified on 22 Sep 2020).
How to do that?

UPDATE 1: I tried changing my computer's name to match the old one but Time Machine still insists on creating a new set of backups from scratch – it just calls the new "machine directory" Borek’s MacBook Pro 2:

I have also ran this script, found here (as Big Sur doesn't seem to support -a), to run tmutil associatedisk an all folders found under the original backup location:
for f in /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb/Borek’s\ MacBook\ Pro/*; do
  if [[ -d "$f" ]]; then
    sudo tmutil associatedisk /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD "$f"/Macintosh\ HD;
  fi;
done

This also worked correctly but Time Machine still doesn't see my older backups and is attempting to create Borek’s MacBook Pro 2 when I try to run a backup.

UPDATE 2: I've successfully verified backups which was a solution in this answer. The preferences UI still report "no backups" so I'm now trying to run a new backup, which was Step 2 in that answer and the author wasn't sure if it's necessary or not. I'll report back in a few hours...


texts:
This is a 4 TB hard drive formatted in Mac's Disk Utility as a single non bootable Exfat partition with the drive letter G. It worked fine before I decided to make a clone drive of my C bootable drive. During boot Windows repaired the new clone drive with the letter E, after that G is no longer accessible in Mavericks or Windows.

The hard drive is listed in Mac's Disk Utility and Windows Disk Management. But there's no drive letter and I'm unable to mount it.

In Windows Disk Management, the Hard Drive shows as Healthy "EFI System Partition" labeled as Free Space. All the options are grayed. Only "Convert to Dynamic Disk..." is accessible.

As for Disk Utility in Mac, the mount option does nothing, and Repair returns:

  Error: This disk doesn’t contain an EFI system partition. If you want to start up your computer with this disk or include it in a RAID set, back up your data and partition this disk.

As mentioned, this is a non bootable drive.

The documents in the drive are very important, so a format would be detrimental.

sudo gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=4000787030016; sectorsize=512; blocks=7814037168
gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 7814037167
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34      262144      1  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
      262178        2014
      264192  7813771264      2  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
  7814035456        1679
  7814037135          32         Sec GPT table
  7814037167           1         Sec GPT header

TestDisk results:


texts:
I would like to  I've recently installed Debian Linux on my Macbook, which required repartitioning the hard drive.

I now can't boot into Recovery Mode. Holding down Command+R on boot brings up Internet Recovery Mode. Holding Option on boot brings up the Startup Manager, which lists the Recovery HD, but if I select it, regular OS X boots.

I'm using a Retina MacBook Pro Early 2015 13" on OS X 10.11.4

$ sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         MBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2         32         Pri GPT table
       34          6
       40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
   409640  843043264      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
843452904    1269536      3  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
844722440  123046872      4  GPT part - 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4
967769312     262144
968031456    8811424      5  GPT part - 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F
976842880     262147
977105027         32         Sec GPT table
977105059          1         Sec GPT header

$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 60821/255/63 [977105060 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE    0   0   1 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
*2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  843043264] HFS+
 3: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 843452904 -    1269536] HFS+
 4: 83 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 844722440 -  123046872] Linux files*

 $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            431.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:           Linux Filesystem                         63.0 GB    disk0s4
   5:                 Linux Swap                         4.5 GB     disk0s5

$ diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found


texts: I recently got my iPhone 4 unlocked from att I have some issues and want to erase and rest all setings, can this effect my unlocked status?

texts:
I recently got my iPhone 4 unlocked from att I have some issues from before the unlock that persist (microphone, home button, internet connections).

I did not have to restore or set up the iPhone as new, as soon as the unlocked message appeared in iTunes I disconnected the phone, there were no resulting problems but I still have the problems from before the unlock.

I simply did not restore or set up the phone as new because I did not want to loose all my data,  my phone is jailbroken and before the unlock I was using a gevey sim.

I want to erase and rest all setings, to start fresh, can this effect my unlocked status?
I don't want to loose my unlock as I live in Costa Rica
Thanx


texts: How does the iPhone 3.5 mm port work with regards to input?

texts:
Due to the recent death of Pebble, I am making plans for a custom built smart watch that actually has buttons (seriously, try finding a smart watch without a touch screen) which will probably never be sold due to my priority for personal preference. One of my prototype designs has the watch connected through the 3.5 mm port (on an older phone obviously). I know data input through the 3.5 mm is possible because the Square Card Reader uses it as well as most quality headphones with the pause button/mic. I have torn apart an older set of Apple standard headphones and found that there are five internal wires (green, green striped, red, red striped, and green and red striped) plus a white plastic core. I haven't been able to figure out which goes to which ring yet but that should be easy to figure out with a bit more dissecting.

From my understanding the rings are, in order from tip up, ground/left/right/button with ground being split into two so that it can go to each bud. I may be off a little on the order here.

What I want to know is, which rings are the iPhone able to understand input from? I know it can take input from the ring linked to the button, but can it also take input from the other two rings? Or can it only send output on those?


texts: OS X 10.8.6 installed on USB Flash Drive using most of drive space

texts:
I have created an installation of OS X on a small drive. Everything has worked fine apart from the fact that it has used up most of my space. According the file size on each of the folders in the root directory do not amount to the space shown in the disk utility.

I have only done an install of OS X and DeployStudio so it surely should not be using up an entire 32 GB drive.

I have tried verifying and repairing the disk as well as a couple of reboots.


texts: Attempting to run samba with a LaunchAgent - process won't start with system

texts:
I've installed Samba3 from MacPorts. (following this guide) To run it I execute sudo /opt/local/sbin/smbd -D && sudo /opt/local/sbin/nmbd -D in a Terminal window and everything works fine.

I've attempted to create a LaunchAgent to run samba with the system, rather than having to invoke it manually. My plist file is called com.samba3.plist and consists of the following:

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.samba3</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/opt/local/sbin/smbd</string>
<string>-D</string>
<string>&amp;&amp;</string>
<string>/opt/local/sbin/nmbd</string>
<string>-D</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

However, on system startup samba is not being run.


texts:
Have MacBook Pro 2010 running Mavericks. Hard drive crashed/replaced at Apple Store Minneapolis in June. Now cannot access Word for Mac. 3 choices: 1) enter product key 2) sign in to existing Office 365 subscription 3) try Office 365.

Left Minneapolis for Wyoming for a month before trying to access Word, old info not available here if I had it. Original e-mail address & password long forgotten. New problem for me, lost.


texts: Hostname changed after setting up virtual host in MAMP

texts:
I have MAMP Pro installed and recently configured a local virtual host called: test.local.

Now my OSX terminal prompt says

test:~ username$

I just noticed also when an email bounced back the raw header also shows test.local:

Received: from cpe-111-111-111-111.lns1.lon.somehost.com ([222.222.222.2222]:22222 helo=testhost.local)

I've tried running...

scutil --set LocalHostName properHostName

…but it hasn't had an effect.  Also, if I do override it to the original proper hostname, will there be negative side effects?


texts:
Simply, I want /tmp (/private/tmp) to not vanish if the system is rebooted. (Yes, really.)

It doesn't appear to be mounted to a special file system, so there's something occurring during startup.

I'm running Mojave at the moment.


texts: Is backup mandatory for upgrade to iOS 6 in iPhone 4S?

texts: I know that it is recommended that I backup my data, but if I upgrade to an iPhone 4S to iOS 6, does everything in my iPhone get deleted? Or does it keep original data, except when some errors occur?


texts: Can running `yes > /dev/null` harm a Mac?

texts:
I recently ran yes > /dev/null for a 3 minutes to drain my Mac's battery. During that time, the temperature rose to 72 °C and fans spun up to 4000 RPM. I immediately quit the process.

Should I fear that has this damaged hardware or the logic board?


texts: What are some good options for recording a screenscast or webinar?  Often, but not always, they are delivered by goto meeting and are quite often put on during horribly inconvenient times for our office.  Are there simple software that would let us record these on our mac and watch later.  Sort of like Tivo'ing them!


texts: Photos: imported AVI file from old camera has wrong date taken (day of import), but all metadata seems to be correct

texts:
I'm trying to import all my photo library to Photos.app. I have several videos, which were taken in 2007 in AVI format on old digital camera. And that videos after imported appears in Photos.app like it was taken today (date of import). All metadata seems to be correct

This is output of GetFileInfo:

type: "\0\0\0\0"
creator: "\0\0\0\0"
attributes: avbstclinmedz
created: 08/20/2007 12:10:50
modified: 08/20/2007 12:10:50

This is output of stat:

872415234 3516139 -rwxrwxrwx 1 strate staff 0 6937758 "Aug 20 12:10:50 2007" "Aug 20 12:10:50 2007" "Aug 20 12:10:50 2007" "Aug 20 12:10:50 2007" 4096 13552 0 P8200030.AVI

And this is output of exiftool

ExifTool Version Number         : 11.85
File Name                       : P8200030.AVI
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 6.6 MB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2007:08:20 12:10:50+04:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2007:08:20 12:10:50+04:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2007:08:20 12:10:50+04:00
File Permissions                : rwxrwxrwx
File Type                       : AVI
File Type Extension             : avi
MIME Type                       : video/x-msvideo
Frame Rate                      : 15
Max Data Rate                   : 488.3 kB/s
Frame Count                     : 308
Stream Count                    : 1
Stream Type                     : Video
Video Codec                     : mjpg
Video Frame Rate                : 15
Video Frame Count               : 308
Quality                         : 10000
Sample Size                     : Variable
BMP Version                     : Windows V3
Image Width                     : 320
Image Height                    : 240
Planes                          : 1
Bit Depth                       : 24
Compression                     : MJPG
Image Length                    : 230400
Pixels Per Meter X              : 0
Pixels Per Meter Y              : 0
Num Colors                      : Use BitDepth
Num Important Colors            : All
Date/Time Original              : 2007:08:20 11:10:29
Software                        : OLYMPUS FE210/X775
Make                            : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Camera Model Name               : FE210,X775
F Number                        : 3.1
Date Time 1                     : Mon Aug 20 11:10:29 2007
Date Time 2                     : Mon Aug 20 11:10:29 2007
Thumbnail Width                 : 160
Thumbnail Height                : 120
Thumbnail Length                : 7410
Thumbnail Image                 : (Binary data 7410 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Aperture                        : 3.1
Image Size                      : 320x240
Megapixels                      : 0.077
Duration                        : 20.53 s

Seems that all metadata is are set to valid date, but it does not help. How can I fix it?


texts: How do I mount a network drive based on my IP address or wifi network?

texts:
When I am at work, I mount a number of shared drives to use during the day. At home, I mount drives on my home network for home use. Is there a way that I can automatically mount the correct drives based on the network I am connected to? Ideally I would do this based on IP address, as I connect via Ethernet cable at work.

Is it necessary to use AppleScript or a shell script? I have tools like Hazel and Keyboard Maestro at my disposal.

Thank you.


texts:
I have a few videos on iPhone under the Videos app, not Photos.app video stream.

I have synced with iTunes, unchecked sync videos etc, and they have still not been removed, even though they are unchecked in iTunes.

The videos were bought on the iPhone if that makes a difference.

Please note: I have looked at this question which relates to video files but they are through the Photos app not iTunes and the Videos app.


texts: I am having a problem seeing all of my notes between my devices. Unfortunately, my primary iCloud account is @me.com. When my newer computer was set up, it was set up with @iCloud.com since @me.com is no longer around. I have the iCloud account as an alias and it works for everything but Notes. I can't figure out how to change my Notes on the Mac to integrate into my mobile devices. If I could just Airdrop, I could at least have the critical ones come through. Any advice?


texts: When would my Macbook Pro (Mid 2010) no longer run the next macOS?

texts:
I had to let go of my white Macbook (2007) because the new OSX would no longer run on it.

Currently Mactracker lists my Macbook Pro (Mid 2010) with a support status of "vintage" but that relates to the availability of hardware parts I read. I am not too worried about that because there have been so many of these machines produced that parts will be around for the next 10 years I bet.

A MBP of 2007 is listed in Mactracker as still capable of running the latest macOS. A MBP 2006 is not. How many more years can I expect to keep running on a new OS with my 2010 MBP though? 3 or 4 years?


texts: In macOS 10.14 (Mojave), can Finder remember previously opened tabs like Safari pin tabs?

texts:
First of all, I am not asking to re-open Finder tabs on OS reboot, we all know it works.

I am asking for a solution when I accidentally clicked on the red-cross (aka close window button) on Finder window, it cause Finder to lose all currently opened tabs.

I know this is the expected behavior, but can I change it somehow? I have come to rely on it in macOS 10.12-10.13 (Sierra and High Sierra), when Finder window always remember previously opened tabs even if you close it yourself.

Some say the behavior in 10.12/10.13 is a bug, other argues it was working in Mavericks 10.9, but was broken by Apple in Yosemite 10.10, and later fixed then re-break. Both could be true. But is there a solution to get this behavior back?

The best I could find is a AppleScript that open tabs, but it doesn't really restore tabs as it simply doesn't have the information to restore a previously closed window.

Is there a solution out there I am not aware of?


texts: How to have path displayed in list when searching in finder?

texts: So I am looking for util.js, and finder found many, but the path is not an option for display in the table. Is there a way to get the full path in the table as well? Otherwise I have to down-arrow through the list for each one and look at the bar at the bottom. And there are so many!  I would like to use the empty area on the right for the path.


texts: Changed the mod for ~/.. directory by mistake, made it 744, can't boot anymore

texts:
I ran the following command by mistake:

sudo chmod 744 ~/..

and I can't boot my macbook anymore, it freezes with the brown screen and ajax-style spin. What should I do to make it work normally again?

I tried:

a) Disk utility (repair permissions) - didn't help
b) resetpassword -> reset ACL and permissions for home directory - didn't help.

I booted in the recovery mode, opened the terminal and went to "/Volumes/Macintosh HD". Yes, this was the disk (or should I say "path") I changed the permissions for.

How do I restore them now? And what are they were?

UPDATE:

I was able to restore it by going to the terminal in recovery mode and performing:

chmod 777 "/Volumes/Macintosh HD/"

But I believe that 777 is too much. What's the default umask for ~/.. ?

UPDATE2:

I don't know why it worked since ~/.. means /Users, not /.


texts: MacBook Pro Retina 13" not connecting to some Wifi networks

texts:
I just bought a MacBook Pro Retina 13" with Mavericks and all the latest updates, and have an issue connecting to some Wifi networks that my Windows Laptop and my Windows Phone had no issue with at all.

I have sucessfully connected to my own Wifi router (Asus) and various coffee shop wifi access points.

However it does not connect to the Wifi in my local coffee shop at all. It just shows 'Connection time out' after about 5 seconds.

It is not the WPA2 password, because I can connect to it from my wifi enabled phone (Nokia Lumia 920) with no issue. (I deleted the Wifi connection on my phone and reconnected to make sure)

Are there any steps I can take to get my MacBook working with all the routers again?


texts: How to get contents of most recent iMessage

texts:
I would like to get the contents of my most recent iMessage using either applescript of terminal. I'm fine with it going to the clipboard or a variable, but I can't find this information anywhere.

Here are a few ways I've thought about doing this:

getting the contents of the most recent notification (cannot find this anywhere)
looking at my message history (a little clunky)


texts:
Yesterday I tried to install Win10 through bootcamp, but it couldn't install it on the premade partition. Eager as I was i meddled with the partition scheme during the installer but with no result.

While in pain that I couldn't get my dual boot right, I wanted to reset the partition-table by using bootcamp, only it gave me this error:

  The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

I'm currently stuck using DiskUtils to delete the partitions and make my HDD whole again. But it won't work.

This is the output from diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE              IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            401.4 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
4:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s4
5:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s5
6:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s6
7:                  Apple_HFS Backup                  96.7 GB    disk0s7
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +401.0 GB   disk1
                             Logical Volume on disk0s2
                             F6E64063-7D4B-4D75-AAC5-C4D128919CD3
                             Unencrypted

My Mac model is MacBook Pro mid 2015.

The desired goal is to lose all partitions, including the "Backup" partition, which I can not seem to delete using the Disk Utility application. Eventually, I want to have a single Mac partition, which is required by the Boot Camp Assistant application to install a Windows 10.

Any advice?

Thanks


texts: Drive name red in Disk Utility: Core Storage Drive offline. How to bring back?

texts:
Yesterday, my mac wouldn't boot up.  When I restarted, I could get the whole way to the User login screen.  No matter what user I chose, the boot bar would get about 1/3 way finished and I would get the circle with the line through it (prohibitory sign).

I couldn't boot into recovery, and internet recovery > Disk Utility would hang on "checking prerequisites".

The disk in questions is an SSD called "My HD"

So I booted into Yosemite on an external drive.  That's where I'm currently writing this. Disk Utility found My HD but the name was red. Clicking "Verify" or "Repair" did nothing. Everything on the partition tab was greyed out. Hovering over the disk name said "Core Storage Drive Offline".

In terminal diskutil cs list returned nothing. distutil list returned all my drives except My HD.

So I restarted.  Now the drive is nowhere to be found. If I go into System Information, it's not listed under "storage" and under SATA, I have "Intel 6 Series Chipset > Unknown"

I don't have a clue what the next step is to fixing this issue. Is my disk completely gone / unrecoverable?


texts: External Sonnet 550 eGPU not providing enough power for MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)

texts:
I have an external Sonnet box https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/egfx-breakaway-box-550, and it is not charging my notebook fast enough, e.g battery still draining when the MacBook screen is open. Especially with docker and compiling and IPad as an external display. When the screen is closed, all good enough, e.g 3-4 powers of gaming until the battery is 0.

I tried to plug in external power adapter (native) when eGPU is powered, but MAC does not switch to it, despite Apple states, that it will use a source with the most power.
However, if I change the order of load, e.g. plug power first, then Sonnet, then the battery is charging from the native adapter and all good.
Still, it is sad that need two cables and eGPU is not powering enough
Is there any way to fix it? Maybe to switch power read from another source? E.g. some command in terminal to use the specific USB-C port for power or whatever?


texts: Issue with broken display on MacBook Air while trying to reinstall OS X

texts:
So I have this MacBook Air that I haven't used in a year and I forgot the password. Problem is, the display has been broken for a long time, so I have been using an external monitor with it, but I couldn't find a way to get Recovery Mode to display to the external monitor.

I managed to use the VoiceOver function to erase the hard drive, but because I didn't remember the shortcut to close the window, so I could immediately reinstall OS X, I restarted the computer.

Now it won't output to the external monitor, and VoiceOver doesn't do anything, so all I have is a blank screen.

Does anyone know what this screen looks like and can give some simple guidance so I can reinstall OS X using the keyboard?

Update: I remember it saying that it ran Mac OS X Lion while I was going through the options, and while I'm not sure exactly which type of MacBook Air it is, it is small and its model number is A1370.

Update 2: After leaving it alone for a while, we restarted it holding command+R again, and it worked. Not sure what changed, but it worked.


texts: How to use iPhone to send Bluetooth to a speaker playing the music from my PC HDD?

texts: I have a PC which has no bluetooth and want to play music this PC to a bluetooth speaker using my iPhone as the bluetooth sender.  PC and iphone could be connected via usb cable or wifi that is not a problem.


texts: Find my phone stopped working from homepod

texts:
I use find my phone often by asking siri on my homepod.
However without changing anything siri now says "before I can help with that you'll  need to update your information in siri settings on  your iphone "
Now there is no siri settings on the phone  there  is in settings a section for siri and search. Which exact settings do I need to change?
I found my phone by logging into icloud on my desktop and running find my from there. My phone made a sound with no problem. Using find my from my ipad made the phone make a sound as well
So what does the homepod need and will that change how my desktop or ipad finds the phone?
All running ios 14


texts: Why can't i hear anything on my macbook pro?

texts: So there is a red light coming out of my headphone jack. I can't hear anything, neither from my speakers nor from any headphone. I have checked the sound in system preferences and when I plug my headphones in the computer does not register them. I've restarted my computer twice and the red light is still on. I tried a toothpick and it didn't work. What can I do?


texts: Why are my maximize and minimize buttons grey?

texts: I have had my MacBook for a couple of months now, and the minimize and maximize buttons are all grey. They weren't like that when I got it. Does anyone know how to get the colors back?


texts: Keyboard backlight is on by default after High Sierra update

texts: Before the High Sierra update, when I used to boot my Macbook Air, the keyboard backlight was always off by default. However, after the update, upon booting the backlight is always on. This is irksome because I always work in a well-lit environment and don't need the backlight. So I have to turn it off each time after start-up. I can't find out how to change this default setting. Can someone help?


texts: How do I resurrect a Thunderbolt display?

texts:
So I have a 27" Thunderbolt in my office that somebody else used to use. Now it is considered "broken", but I think it can be made to work. Here's a rundown of its current state:

I can connect it to my MacBook Pro, and the computer recognizes the display. It shows up on the "Arrangement" tab. It has working USB ports when I connect its USB cable. Even its speakers work. But the display is completely black, doesn't even turn on or flash.

What do you think can be done to fix it?

Thank you.


texts: Mojave freezes for a split second around every 25 seconds when there is a second user logged in

texts:
My MacBook Pro 2016 touch bar with Mojave freezes for a split second every 20~30 seconds when there is another user logged in.

But the other account logged in does not have any apps or suspicious processes running. Console.app shows nothing relevant during the tiny freeze.

I see a lot of users complaining about cursor freezing every time but with my laptop the entire screen, keyboard, and mouse freezes.

I don't use a second monitor or any other accessory - just the laptop using the touchpad as a mouse, not an external mouse.

The problem does not occur with only one user logged in.

Is there any clue about this problem?


texts: How to access data in iPhone backup file directly

texts: I have just gotten rid of my iPhone 5 but did a full  backup of picture and such beforehand. I do not plan on getting another iPhone. Is there a way i can get my content back? I have the backup file location but the files are not what i expected them to be.


texts: Is there a way to dynamically manipulate the spellcheck dictionary?

texts:
I would like to have a way to dynamically add and remove words from the system-wide dictionary in Mountain Lion. The use-case is:

I'm working on a piece of fiction that has a lot of odd names in it that I would like spell-checked -- hit some key-combination that loads those odd name into the dictionary list of known words
I'm done working on the fiction and I no longer want those words polluting my dictionary -- hit some key-combo to unload those words from the dictionary

I could be working on two separate pieces of fiction and would want to load and unload each list separately. I'm not looking for an app with a custom spell-checker; I'm definitely looking for something that works with the built-in, system-wide spell checking sub-system.

All solutions considered: open source, paid applications, AppleScript, Automator, shell scripts -- anything and everything.


texts: When I try to share my notes from Apple Books, the share menu is empty

texts:
This is what I get.
Perhaps it's caused by the latest update? I am on iPhone 6, iOS 12. And my iCloud sync for Books is disabled.


texts: I copied a number of Adobe Premier Pro movie files and some mixed Pro Tools files onto a WD My Passport Slim from my Mac Pro in order to work on them on vacation. When I plug the external drive into my MacBook it won't mount. The power light is on so I know the drive is getting power through the USB cable. At one point it appeared in disk utility but I could not alter it at all. Now it's not showing up at all.Tried to install the "My Passport"drivers from WDC but it won't load properly either (just gives me a "not responding" message). I am running Sierra on this MacBook and the drive itself is formatted to FAT32 so everything should load properly. And yet!! Any tips would be appreciated.


texts: iPhone - how to disable Shake for undoing read/unread email?

texts:
Can anyone help me understand if there have been changes to the "shake-to-undo" feature specific to Mail using it to undo marking messages read/unread? My mom gets a pop-up just about every time she opens Mail, asking "Undo read message?"
We both have shake-to-undo enabled globally, but mine does not do this (nor do I want it to). Shake-to-undo typing is working equally for both of us.
In further troublehsooting, I notice that I'm still in iOS 12.3.1, and she's on 13.x (not at her phone rn).
Does anybody recall this behavior being specifically added in iOS 13? By any chance has it been changed since then? I've done a lot of searching on this, and there are countless posts from others who are frustrated by it.
We had to turn off the global setting to get her phone to stop doing this, which is unfortunately b/c it is otherwise an important and useful feature.


texts: How can I find out which 21:9 Monitors will charge my MacBook Pro 15"?

texts: I know the LG UltraFine 5K monitor has the  ability to supply enough power to charge a 15" MacBook Pro (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207448) but is there a way to tell if a different monitor supports this function?


texts: safari to open external links in new window

texts:
I like safari to open links in new tabs in general. I.e. when I do a search, I want results I click to open in new tabs in the same window. This allows to have multiple windows with multiple tabs and have them grouped by topic.

when I click on a link i an email, safari (on OS X) somehow (randomly?) chooses an open window and opens the link as a new tab in it. sometime it picks even a minimised window, although there are others visible on the same space.

to be clear: I want the new window when the action is triggered from external application (e.g. Mail, etc.). Within Safari I'd like to stick with the default behaviour.

I tried the Safari Settings -> Tabs -> Open new pages in tabs instead of windows setting (all of them), but this does not give the expected result. it is general for all.
Also google did not know a satisfying answer, so I am asking here.

Any help is appreciated.


texts:
My iPhone and iPad both are connected on to the same exchange server.

Recently I cleaned up the contacts on my iPad.

On both devices I see revisions but most of the contacts deleted on my iPad are still in the contact list from the iPhone.

How is it possible the number of contacts on both devices differ?


texts: TV Style remote that can be mapped to keypresses

texts:
For a project I'm working on I need to get people to interact with a mac using a TV Style Remote.

I want to map some of the buttons (Left, Right, Up, Down, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Select) to simulate keypresses.

Can anyone point me in the direction of something that might be suitable for a machine running Snow Leopard. I've seen several solutions targeting at Windows MCE but none of them have had Mac support.

The standard apple remote, or an iPod/iPad remote app aren't suitable for this project.


texts: Disable cellular radio on iPad when sleeping?

texts: I want to save battery and not be logged in CDRs when my iPad is idle (besides, I have two phones that are online constantly so I am already notified when I receive mail or other updates), hence I want to automatically disable cellular radio when the iPad is locked/screen is turned off. Any solutions for this? I am prepared to jailbreak it if necessary.


texts:
I'm on macOS 10.15 Dev Beta 8. iPad is running iOS 13 Dev Beta 8.

My documents folders (Keynote, Pages, iMovie, etc) in the root iCloud Drive folder are all missing. Usually I'd pencil it in as a delayed sync post-update, but I've checked my iPad and they're missing there too. iCloud.com shows the files being there, in the correct place.

Why would both my iPad and my Mac be missing the folders if iCloud.com seems to think they're there?

Does anyone have an experience like this?


texts: macOS: Wrong Bonjour name stuck in hostname

texts:
Due to a network problem, my iMac was renamed Theater-ATV-8.localname.  This is the name that appears when the Terminal hostname name is run.

Nothing I have tried will change this name permanently. I can change it with hostname [new name], but it reverts on reboot.

The name in the Sharing pane in System Preferences if KW-desk-iMAC.


texts: Is it safe to delete a user's "Downloads" and "Documents" folders in OS X?

texts:
When attempting to delete my user account's "Downloads/Documents" folder, I get a beep and nothing happens. But I figure I could probably get rid of them in Terminal with a sudo rm -f...am I right? And would this break the OS in any way?

I don't use those folders at all (downloads from my browser go straight to my desktop, and that's where I keep most of my user docs too) so this would be good to be able to do in the interest of keeping the computer as clean as possible, and also being able to autocomplete "Desktop" with a single D<Tab> keystroke in Terminal. Thanks!

UPDATE: Thanks to those who suggested workarounds in the comments, but I'm not interested in pretending that those folders don't exist; I want them gone! If that's not possible, then no worries, thanks anyway :-)


texts: How do I select part of an audio track in GarageBand 10.3.2?

texts:
I'm using GarageBand 10.3.2 on Mojave.  I want to extract part of an MP3 file but I'm having trouble figuring out how to select the part I want.  When I open my track I see the below.

I want to select a region between 23.25 and 27.  When I hold down the Shift key and click the playhead, and then slide the playhead to the right end where I want the selection to end, I see no visual indicator that I have selected anything.  Indeed when I do Edit -> Copy, open a new project and try and paste something, tehre's nothing there.  How do I select a region?


texts:
I have a MacBook air
On clicking on the search bar or any link, another tab is opened with some ad on it.

I tried to download things like adwcleaner etc., but I can find them only in .exe extension.


texts: Calendar month view is unresponsive on iOS 9

texts: On two phones that I have tested the month view in the Calendar app in iOS 9 is unresponsive or ignore taps. It seems like most of the time double tapping a day will open that day but sometimes (rarely) only single tapping a day will open that day. Is anyone else seeing this. Is there a workaround I can try before restoring my device?


texts: Find all folders with rwx permissions for a certain user?

texts:
How do I find all the folders that have rwx permissions for a certain user?

Preferably no admin, can use shell scripts, Terminal, Python 3.6.


texts: repair an out-of-warranty Thunderbolt port

texts:
The Thunderbolt port on my trusty several-year-old MacBook Pro is failing. To connect an external display, I now have to wiggle the cable around, then pull it out a few millimeters until the contacts are lined up just right. It's only a matter of time before the port breaks entirely.

Everything else about the machine is in great shape. Is this a "replace the entire motherboard" problem, or is there a better/faster/cheaper solution?


texts: How to restore iTunes library from a backup

texts: My PC recently died, and I'm trying to transfer my iTunes library to my Mac. According to http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to-a-new-hard-drive, the iTunes database is keyed by filename, so even if I copy my old library and music files into the iTunes directory on my Mac, the database doesn't point to the right files anymore, because the directory structure is different on the Mac than on the PC. iTunes is able to partially recover by searching for matching files, but it still winds up with a lot of broken links - too many to repair by hand. Since the old computer is broken, I can't 'consolidate' the library in its old location before transferring it, as that website suggests. Do I have any options for restoring the library intact?


texts: How can I download the file on iCloud Drive manually?

texts:
I have a few music files I put on iCloud Drive a while ago, and now I want to move them to my Dropbox directory.

So I tried to download them locally in order to move to my Dropbox directory, but the download won't start by double-tapping the filename.

I also tried to choose the "Download now" section on the file (maybe the English description is different, but it is the third menu item on the pane) but the download won't start, either.

In the past the download started immediately, but now it won't. There is enough storage in my local computer (about 90GB at least). Restarting the computer won't resolve the problem.

What is wrong with it and how can I download the files? I use Catalina Beta 6 on my 2017 12' MacBook.


texts:
Mid-work at airport, Macbook pops login screen. All of a sudden stops accepting my password (which is same password used for all services).

After researching the issue and talking to Apple I was presented with the following options:

Reset with Apple ID. When I try this, I get "Unknown error occurred"
All options in Recovery OS
Unlock Volume HD

I never set up FileVault though. So currently Macbook is bricked, I'm in a country without a Genius Bar, and all my work is on the machine...

Anybody else experiencing these issues? Anything worked?