texts:
I’ve got a Mojave installation with an APFS drive. I’ve installed and uninstalled Boot Camp partitions several times over the years, and somehow things have gotten out of sync. I can now see the 500GB drive in Disk Utility, but there is only a single 300GB APFS container, and Boot Camp Assistant is giving me some errors when I try to repartition the drive.

I’m due to reinstall macOS from scratch anyway for some other reasons, so I’d like to completely destroy the disk (including all of the APFS containers and volumes) and have it reinitialized back as if it was a freshly out—of-the-box machine.

If I reboot into Recovery Mode and use Disk Utility, is there a way I can delete and then recreate all of the disk configuration?


texts: Does Facetime on Mountain Lion allow you to share your screen?

texts: I am trying to figure out a way to share my screen with someone else.  I wanted to see if Facetime had that feature or if there is another recommendation for screen sharing on Mountain Lion.


texts: Gmail tab in Safari Consumes high band width

texts:
I have figured a process called 'Safari networking' (I think it's the process of safari browser) consumes lots of bandwidth. It's about 1 GB in 1 hour, but I didn't download anything. I have also found that it eats bandwidth only when gmail is opened in a safari tab. If you close gmail tab, bandwidth usage  is normal.Any idea why this is happening ?

OSX Yosmite 10.10.2
Safari 8.0.3


texts:
Question: Can I take apart a CD drive from an old MacBook Pro and connect it to a newer MacBook Pro that does not have a CD drive?

Background:
The old MacBook Pro is broken, but the CD drive still works. I do not need to be particularly careful to the old Mac when taking out the CD drive.
However, I want to know whether there is any way to connect the isolated CD drive to a newer Mac. The reason is simple: I have a bunch of DVDs but no optical drive other than the one inside the broken Mac.

If so, what kind of hardware (e.g. cable) and software (e.g. any special program or setup?) would I need?


texts: Deactivate automatic mark as read in Apple Mail 7.3

texts:
I just changed from Windows to OS X Mavericks with Apple Mail App 7.3. The first thing I'm wondering about is that I cannot disable the automation to mark an email as read by default when I just clicked on it. Is there any way to do so?

I found TruePreview. But the tool does not support Mail 7.3 any more. Another solution would be to use a different mail client like Thunderbird. But there I miss the integration of the address book and the synchronisation with my iPhone and iPad.


texts: How to ignore warning for program that connects to VPN

texts: I have to click accept/allow on this dialog everytime I launch a process that goes out to the web via the VPN..is there some env var I can set which can ignore the warning?


texts: Why isn't iPhoto '11 showing an event present in the library?

texts:
I'm having a problem where the last imported photos to my iPhoto '11 (version 9.1.5 (615)) library don't show up under the "Events" entry. The event shows up under "Last import" and under "Photos", but not under "Events". I have tried to re-create the event several times, without luck. There are several events created from the last two photo imports that aren't showing under "Events".

What can I do to fix this problem? Is there a way to reset iPhoto's "Event" index somehow so it can be rebuilt?


texts: How to disable syncing applications without uninstalling them?

texts:
When I disable syncing apps with my iPad, iTunes uninstalls all apps. How can I make iTunes not mess with it and leave the apps on it, even if I disable synchronization?

I tried disconnecting immediately after applying, but this doesn't save the changes I made.

This also happens to my iPods and iPhones.


texts: Upgrade of Python 3.9 with homebrew fails on High Sierra 10.13.6

texts: I'm obligated to upgrade my python on my brew installation so that I can upgrade many other software packages. Every time brew tries to make python (does from source), it gets stuck on make for days, really days. I have to quit, and I have resorted to having my current python pinned to get by with updating my casks. I don't know where to look to even begin to troubleshoot this issue.


texts: iPad Mail client - IMAP with X.509 client certificates?

texts:
Short version: Does anyone know if X.509 client certificates are supposed to work on the iPad for IMAP mail? Am I wasting my time trying to get a feature that doesn't work to work? If the built-in mail app doesn't support IMAP with X.509 client certs (ie: they only work with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync accounts), are there any 3rd party apps that do?

Only iOS 5.1 or newer is of interest; 5.1 is the version I've been testing with.

I'm the admin of a network that's required by policy to use X.509 client certificates to protect all external communication, including our IMAP mail server (Cyrus IMAPd) and SMTP server (postfix). Neither will accept a connection without the client presenting a valid X.509 client certificate. Disabling the client certificate requirement is not an option for me, and we aren't permitted to tunnel traffic in via VPN for similar reasons.

We now have iPad users who want to connect to our network, and are finding the iPad to be a bit of a problem.

For users on desktop machines we usually install Thunderbird, as it has rock solid IMAP with excellent client certificate support; it "just works" and is the same to support on every platform. This isn't an option for iPad.

Unfortunately the iPad's built-in Mail app doesn't seem to cope with client certificates for IMAP. I can install our org's root cert and the user's client cert using the iPhone Configuration Utility. Both are shown as "verified" in Settings->General->Profiles.  The iPad then accepts our server as trusted and omits any warnings about the server's identity not being verified.

Mail still fails to send a client certificate when one is demanded so the server terminates the handshake. It doesn't prompt the user to select one, nor does it automatically send the client certificate it has installed for the user that matches the CA certificate presented by the server.

Examination of the traffic flow between client and server shows that the TLS negotiation fails when the iPad responds with an empty set of client certificates when client certificates are demanded by the server. See below.

When connected to the internal network over encrypted WiFi, where no client cert is required to get mail, the device connects and downloads mail just fine. External access (public WiFi or over 3G) fails, whether I use the IMAPs port 993 with "Use SSL" checked or the IMAP+TLS port 143 with or without "Use SSL" checked. Other than the apparent lack of client certificate negotiation support for IMAP, it's perfect.

References to client certificate support in the documentation for Apple's "Enterprise support" only appear where Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync is discussed, and where Cisco VPN support is discussed.

There are a few questions on Apple's discussion forums, but no recent ones and no useful answers. I'd link to them, but Apple's forums are "down for maintenance" at the moment.

As a workaround I can probably set up a locked down VPN using the iPad's automatic VPN connection support to talk to a client-cert authed IPSec VPN that can only talk to the IMAP and SMTP servers on the appropriate ports plus DNS, nothing else. It'd be a pretty gruesome hack to have to perpetrate though.

BTW, the client<->server conversation is:

C -> S      TLSv1    Client Hello
S -> C      TLSv1    Server Hello
S -> C      TLSv1    Certificate, Certificate Request, Server Hello Done
                    (Sends server cert, signing root cert,
                     DN of accepted client cert signer which happens to be the same as the root that signed the server cert)
C -> S      TLSv1    Certificate
                    (empty set of certificates, zero certs included)
S -> C      TLSv1    Handshake failure

In other words, the server says "this is me, I expect you to provide a certificate signed by  authority to prove who you are" and the client replies with "Um, my papers are in this empty envelope here. Look, a cassowary!"

The client has the root cert installed, and has a client cert installed that has the signer DN demanded by the server.


texts: Watch a video while it downloads in iTunes 10

texts: Previously when downloading an iTunes U video I could double click it and the video would start playing while it is downloading. But now after updating to iTunes 10 it doesn't seem I can do that? Is it just me or have Apple gone backwards on this.


texts:
I'd like to copy all photos from one iPhoto album (on machine A) onto a new iPhoto library (on machine B). I realise I could import the physical folder over a share but I'd like to keep the event folders etc and not import the original and modified duplicates within the source library.

The folder size is around 15GB and I was able to select import from within iPhoto and point it to the remote iPhoto location on machine B. It attempted to import all night and when I got up, it reported there wasn't enough disk space to do the import. Machine A had about 75GB so I suspect something else.

Anyway, my question is really to see if you have any tips about copying or otherwise sharing photos between machines. If you've got any insight in what went wrong for my scenario above, I'd love to hear that too!

Machine B is a Macbook Air and has no ethernet port, hence the wireless tag.

EDIT If I were to export then import, I'd lose the event groups wouldn't I? I want to keep what organisation I have between the machines.

Cheers


texts:
I am getting "ctkahp quit unexpectedly" regularly on my macOS Sierra 10.12.1 Mac Mini.

I cannot find any resources about what this process is.

When this error occurs, my machine can't connect to the internet at all and I get a ton of errors, iCloud, etc.

I have to reboot to make it go away.


texts: SSD lifetime, hibernation, and mobile TM

texts:
I've recently gotten a 2012 MacBook Air 13". It is wonderful, however, I've been stressing about the life of the SSD. I understand that Apple probably would not sell an SSD machine with defaults that would ruin the SSD; however, I have some concerns.

Like all Mac laptops, by default it uses a hybrid sleep mode, so every time I close it, it writes up to 8 GB to the SSD. This is many, many times a day -- I'm in college, and I am always going to various places on campus, and the laptop almost always comes with me.

In addition, the default Time Machine configuration stores snapshots locally, and eventually, is allowed to fill 80% of the drive.

Both of these seem somewhat problematic to me -- sleeping and waking 10 times a day might write around 25% of the SSD capacity a day, and if I do let the mobile snapshots take up 80% of the drive, the static data on the drive will increase write amplification due to the SSD's wear leveling.

Am I worrying over nothing, or do I have a legitimate concern? If yes for the latter, what can I do to improve the life of the SSD?


texts:
My MacBook charger is supposed to pass 60 watts power, but it's passing only around 12 watts.  Also, the green LED just blinks randomly.

Should I get a new charger or something can be done to existing one?


texts: How to get AppleScript to log the display name of user triggering an Adium event

texts:
In the Adium chat client, each contact includes a number of event hooks via the "Get Info" window for a contact:

Contact becomes idle
Contact goes away
etc.

Each of these events allows you to hook up an AppleScript when the event triggers. When the event triggers, I'd like to log the name of the contact that triggered the event. Thus far, I've tried a number of different variations on this line of AppleScript code:

tell application "Adium" to get display name of contact of active chat

Unfortunately, this doesn't yield the right result. I've pored over the Adium API docs and I can't figure it out. Any help is appreciated.


texts: Mail.app: Moving messages out of IMAP accounts to local folders without keeping a copy in the Archive

texts:
I have my Mail.app set up with multiple email accounts (from different providers).

For each of these accounts, I would like to make sure that when I drag an email out of the respective inbox into a custom “On my Mac” folder, that it gets deleted (or ends up in the IMAP Trash folder).
However, this only works for the iCloud account.
For Gmail accounts, unfortunately, when I drag an email out of a Gmail inbox, it ends up in the IMAP All Mail folder (under “Archive”) and not in the Trash.

See the screenshot below of my setup:
Dragging a message from Inbox > iCloud into On My Mac > A Local Test Folder deletes the message from iCloud (it doesn’t show up in either the Trash > iCloud or the Archive > iCloud folders

Dragging a message from Inbox > Account A into On My Mac > A Local Test Folder moves the message into Archive > Account A (All Mail)

I would like it to be either moved into the Trash > Account A folder (so that it eventually gets deleted from the server), or to be deleted immediately.

Here’s what I tried:  In the Gmail settings (in the browser)  under Forwarding and POP/IMAP > IMAP access I changed the setting
for When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted: from “Auto-Expunge on” to “Auto-Expunge off” and then changed the next option to “Move the message to the Trash” or, after that didn't work, to "Delete immediately".
Neither setting does have any effect on the behavior in Mail. The message still appears under “Archive”.

Then, in the Mail.app Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors > for all Mailboxes (Drafts, Sent, Junk, Trash) I can choose if I want the IMAP or On My Mac version of the mailbox to be used.  See the screenshot below illustrating this option for Trash.

However, for Archive Mailbox there is no such option.  I can only choose [Gmail]/All Mail.

If there was a way to make it either use the Gmail Trash folder or the On My Mac Archive folder, that would already be of help.


texts: Apps randomly crash when using keyboard shortcuts in popups

texts:
For some weird reason, hitting Enter, Escape, or some other action keys crash the save dialog, open dialog, Command+F, and many others. This makes the entire app crash, and revert to an autosave which is likely very outdated (if at all).

This is after upgrading from El Capitan.

I can confirm clicking the Open, Save, Cancel etc buttons with the mouse work fine, but when I use the keyboard, the entire app crashes.

How do I fix this?

Edit: The following list will be updated with all solutions I have tried, and have failed:

El Capitan: every app crashes when browsing or saving file

Edit 2: I have confirmed this issue also applies to authentication dialogs and the like.

Edit 3: Somehow it got fixed. I don't know how or what caused it, but it just was. If anybody can educate me on this and tell me how this could have happened, please do.

Edit 4: The issue popped up again. I have no idea why.


texts: How to lock the iPad's screen with a keyboard shortcut?

texts:
Is it possible to lock the iPad's screen by using a keyboard shortcut, when using a BT keyboard, or the SmartKeyboard?

Cmd+Shift+Eject as on the Mac does not work. Holding down the Cmd key also does not show any shortcut.


texts: Macbook pro won't start up and the apple logo is blue with stripes

texts:
The problem started a month ago. Suddenly my screen splits in half and the MBP shuts down and won't turn on. When I turn it on, it shows a blue or sometimes grey screen, or just stops loading.

I have tried Cmd+Option+P+R and it worked for sometimes and sometimes it didn't.

Now the logo itself turns blue with stripes (it was grey) and won't show any screen. The bar will just stop loading (also turning to blue) and my previous method won't work at all. Safe boot won't work and so is connecting to an external screen.


texts: What is special about Preview added text or shape elements? Can I move other elements besides these?

texts:
I found that if I use Preview to open a PDF file, and use its tools to add text, or shape elements such as arrows, ellipse, rectangle, then I can use Preview to edit them.

But if the items are not Preview's, then I can't edit them.  In this case, I have also tried using Adobe's Acrobat Standard or Pro trial version to edit a file, and when I see a person wearing a tie, with a shadow, I can move the tie to the left and move the shadow to the right (not always, for example, if the person with the tie is a pure image, then I can't).

So, can Preview have this capability?  Why can I move element that Preview added to the PDF but not move other elements in the PDF?


texts: Side button on iPhone 7 doesn't silent anymore but declines the call

texts:
Until today I was able to silent a call (both from ringing and on silent/vibrate modes) on my iPhone 7 plus with the lock button on the right.
When I press it now, it just declines the call on both modes.


texts: Calculate Network usage using nettop in terminal

texts:
I want to calculate the network usage like some apps do(which displays up and down which changes it's values by the usage of user)

Using nettop:

nettop -t wifi -t wired -P -l 1

But then I saw this repo in Github.

The command used there is

nettop -x -k state -k interface -k rx_dupe -k rx_ooo -k re-tx -k rtt_avg -k rcvsize -k tx_win -k tc_class -k tc_mgt -k cc_algo -k P -k C -k R -k W -l 1 -t wifi -t wired

Now I'm getting different values in bytes_in and bytes_out for both the commands.

For the first command:

Google Chrome.284     153 KiB         150 KiB

For the second command: Taken from github

Google Chrome.284     156895          152847

Q). I ran second command first and first command second. So obviously the first command data should be equal or greater than second command. But it's wrong when I converted(150*1024 = 153600) Why is that? Which command should I use?


texts: Apple Mail 6.2 - Turn OFF automatic checking for new messages

texts:
Well I am very disappointed with Apple Mail. Its checking for new e-mails automatically from time to time regardless the options.

In General options I set "Check for new messages" to "Manually"
In each e-mail account I turned off the option "Include when automatically checking for new messages"
In each IMAP account i turned off the option "Use IDLE command when server supports it"

Mail still downloads new e-mails from time to time.

Any tips how to finally turn this OFF? Thank you


texts: Bluetooth headset always receiving audio, even when none is playing

texts:
I have a Bluetooth headset (MPOW-059) that I use to listen to audio on my Macbook Pro. In the past few months, I've noticed something odd - it always seems to be receiving an audio signal from the laptop, even when no audio is playing.

Normally, when I play audio, I can hear a very faint static hiss start right as I start the audio, and it typically stops within a few seconds of stopping audio (this is probably the normal thermal noise you get with most speakers and headsets). But now, the static never stops after stopping audio, and the hiss continues perpetually unless I disconnect the headset. Muting my system volume does not help.

A typical case for this is when watching a Youtube video in Chrome. The video ends and I navigate away from it (or even close the tab) but I can still hear that my laptop is sending a signal to the headset. This also only happens after audio plays, never before (such as when I pair my headset in the morning - I don't hear the hiss until I've actually played audio).

This wouldn't really be a problem except that it's draining my headset battery. I only experience this behavior on my Macbook, not on any other device I pair my headset with.

How do I determine what is sending the audio signal to my headset, and how do I stop it?


texts:
I have the following terminal command that I want to automate using applescript. I also would like to have a command to cd directories to the folder where I want to apply the command first. After cd to the folder that holds the .pdf files. This code looks at the first letter of the file name and based on that sorts the files into the alphabet folder corresponding to the first letter of the file.

for x in `ls -1 | sed -e 's/^\(.\).*/\1/' | sort -u`; do
mv -i ${x}?* $x
done

How would I go about doing this? I'm a newbie to this. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I'm willing to learn Applescript, however, I'm not sure where to start to implement this.

Thanks


texts: Connect 23” Apple Cinema HD Display to MacBook Pro USB-C

texts:
I’ve gotten my hands on an older 23” Apple Cinema HD Display and would like to use it with my late 2016 MacBook Pro with only USB-C ports. I’ve researched this issue, and I can only find answers from people using the 30” monitor. The gist is that you need to use Apple’s Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter, and then an adapter from Mini DisplayPort to USB-C.

From what I can gather, the 30” monitor was the only model that used a dual-link DVI port, while the 20” and 23” used regular DVI. Reference. Is this correct?

If it is, it would mean I could avoid the very costly Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter, and hopefully instead purchase an Apple HDMI to DVI Adapter and an HDMI to USB-C adapter. From Apple’s description of the HDMI to DVI Adapter:

  Use the HDMI to DVI Adapter to connect a single-link DVI digital monitor, such as the 20-inch or 23-inch Apple Cinema Display, that includes a DVI connector.

Side note: I obviously need the monitor to run at full resolution at 60hz.


texts: Is there a way to prevent my Mac from sleeping during a file copy?

texts:
I'm copying a lot of files (over 700 GB) and it takes hours to complete. Is there a way to keep the Mac from sleeping before the copy process completes? I don't want to sit by the computer and moving my mouse from time to time.
I tried to set my Energy Saver settings as:

But sometimes it still dies. So currently, I have to sit by the laptop and wait.


texts: How to import a spreadsheet into Numbers from an email attachment?

texts:
I want to know how to open a spreadheet email attachement in the Numbers app on the iPad.

Here are the steps I have taken with no luck:

On the iPad I open my email.
I see a spreadsheet attachment.
I click it and it previews.

Now how do I get the spreadhseet into Numbers?

The Apple directions say the following:

'OpenReceive as an email attachment. Preview the spreadsheet and tap the “Open in” button to open Numbers.'

My problem is I cant find the "Open in" option on the iPad??


texts: What do I need to connect a second monitor to my MacBook Pro?

texts: I would like to use my MacBook Pro with a second monitor. What do I need to be able to do this?


texts: What is the best approach to ejecting disk while in sleep mode, scheduled?

texts:
So, I have an external HDD which is being used for Time Machine.

After getting to home, I usually connect my MacBook to a HDD via Hub and put it into sleep mode. Because I sometimes get back home late during the night, the Time Machine backup may happen during midnight. However, in the morning I have to wake up my mac, only to safely eject the HDD and put the MacBook into sleep mode again for bringing my MacBook out.

So I searched in order to create a scheduled disk eject job that can be run during sleep. I looked for solutions like crond, launchd, but even launchd cannot run a script during sleep mode if I properly understood the documentation - even if I set up a job with StartCalendarInterval it will not be invoked until the MacBook is woken up.

Is there any commercial app or another approaches that can be used for my situation?

My OSX is latest version of Mojave.


texts: How do I move my System files to another drive without reformatting the destination?

texts:
I have a 128G SSD for my main drive and it is nearly full, I'd like to move the OS (Yosemite) and all my data to my second drive, a 1TB hybrid drive which is installed in the DVD drive bay.  How do I move all my data and make the hybrid drive bootable without losing the data that I already have on the hybrid drive? I also need to add a system recovery to the hybrid drive somehow.

Options:
1) Restore from Time Machine backup somehow.
2) SuperDuper!
3) ???


texts:
There are certain times when I would like to be able to force my iPad to go to passcode lock mode immediately, rather than waiting for the usual 15-minute timeout.

I currently have "require passcode after" set to 15 minutes. There is also an 'immediately' setting, which requires a passcode every time that the device is brought out of sleep mode, no matter how much time the device was asleep.

I am wondering if there is a way to put the iPad into 'require passcode immediately' mode on a one-time basis, without changing the 15-minute default that I have in settings. The instances where I need an "immediate lock" are few and don't outweigh the utility of keeping the 15 minute delay most of the time.

Is this possible? If so, how?


texts: Repeat a 3 second loop 10x in a 30 second video

texts:
I have a short sequence loop in Motion 5. The file loops for 3 seconds, but my video is 30 seconds in length.

I want to repeat the short sequence file 10 times, so it fits the 30 seconds.

The only way I found to do this is to stretch it, but then it plays 10x slower.
I don't want the speed to be slower. I am just trying to keep the loop on repeat for 30 seconds on normal speed, but there is no button for repeat to do this. Maybe it is hidden somewhere and I cannot find it.


texts:
Whenever I open my notification center to check the weather all the locations I have set up all show the same result as my current locations weather (see screenshot below). For example Houston, TX shows the exact same weather as it does in my location Glendale, CA.

Anyone got a clue why this is happening?

  Yosemite 10.10.3 MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)


texts: Restored system now some apps won't start

texts: I recently restored my 2013 MacBook Pro El Capitan system back to Mavericks from my Time Machine external drive. The restore was successful except a few that wont start: Calendar, Terminal, Messages, App Store. I tried loggin in as guest, same problem.


texts: What are the right post-installation procedure after installing git using Homebrew?

texts:
I installed Git using Homebrew:

brew install git

and then it gave some outputs

$ brew install git
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/git-2.4.0.yosemite.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring git-2.4.0.yosemite.bottle.tar.gz
==> Caveats
The OS X keychain credential helper has been installed to:
  /usr/local/bin/git-credential-osxkeychain

The "contrib" directory has been installed to:
  /usr/local/share/git-core/contrib

Bash completion has been installed to:
  /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d

zsh completion has been installed to:
  /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions
==> Summary
  /usr/local/Cellar/git/2.4.0: 1368 files, 31M
$

Do I need to do any additional post-installation configuration to have all these work?


texts: How to set up ZEVO / ZFS on an internal disk while maintaining full disk encryption?

texts:
It seems that it's currently impossible to have the entire boot drive converted to ZFS.

How would one go about converting a single disk HFS+ Filevault 2 setup into a setup which has full encryption and most of the advantages of ZFS?

I imagine that there will have to remain a boot partition which is HFS+ and all user data would have to somehow live on an encrypted ZFS partition that will get auto-mounted and perhaps symlinked to /Users ...

I'm on 10.8.3 and with CE Zevo (1.1)


texts: Dashboard widgets run in background [10.9]

texts:
I have a webclip in my dashboard on mavericks with play.spotify.com in it and i like to control my music from there, but as soon as i go out of the dashboard the music stops.

I had this working a year back but that was on a other version of mac osx.

Is there a way to allow the dashboard to keep running even if im not looking at it.


texts: Are there any drivers for Canon i450 Printer for OSX 10.7?

texts: My computer sees the printer and it looks like it installed, but when I try to print, I get an error message that it can't find a print head or that the print head is busy.


texts: MacBook Pro crashes randomly after dropping it on the floor

texts:
A few days ago my MacBook Pro slipped out of my hands and fell onto the tile floor. The outside got banged up quite a bit and the Touch Bar no longer lights up but still responds to touches sometimes but not all the time.

Anyway, since then it will randomly restart every once in a while with a kernel panic. I have the log posted below and wanted to know if anyone could tell me what is causing the panic?

Kernel Panic Log


texts: How do I protect myself from the root vulnerability in macOS High Sierra?

texts:
On 28 November, a root vulnerability was discovered by a user in which the root account can be accessed by entering a blank password. This affects all users.

Tech Crunch as an animated gif showing how this works if you use an authentication dialog:

This flaw is also present on the lock screen, any guest or non-admin accounts as well. Additionally, if there is an 'other' option or you log in, through vnc/file sharing / screen sharing your root user could be enabled with no password to protect access.

How can I protect myself?


texts: How do I search footnotes in a Pages Document?

texts: When I try to search for an existing footnote's number no results come back. Is there some special setting to search for footnotes?


texts: Where to Install Applications when using Terminal?

texts:
I use the command line a lot to download and install applications. I've always downloaded into the /tmp directory then installed to another directory.

But where is the place to install such applications? For example, I was just downloading MongoDB (a database application similar to MySQL).
And I had no idea where to put it.

Where should such applications be installed on Mac?
Whats the conventional way?


texts: How do I disable (and re-enable) my Thunderbolt port from the terminal?

texts:
I've been having this problem with my Matrox DualHead2Go ME and my late 2011 15" MBP (running 10.9.2). When the displays wake from sleep, the external monitor does not re-awake.

I've gathered that this is because the Matrox unit goes into its own sleep mode and is not re-awoken by the OS's wake signal.

What does work is unplugging and plugging back in the thunderbolt cable my Matrox is connected with. This is less than ideal, however, as I worry about wear and tear from plugging/unplugging the cable multiple times a day.

Is there any way I could toggle my thunderbolt drive on and off from the terminal to avoid the constant plugging/unplugging of the thunderbolt cable?


texts:
Note that there are other questions on Ask Different with similar issues, but this appears to be different to those - none of the solutions offered in the above questions solve the issue.

I'm using macOS Mojave version 10.14.1 (18B75). In the past few days, 'Desktop' has appeared in my Favourites sidebar in Finder.

'Remove from Sidebar' is an option if I right-click the item:

If I click this, the item disappears for a fraction of a second, and then reappears.

The same thing happens if I try to remove the item in the Finder Preferences:

And, unlike one solution offered on Ask Different, toggling my User folder in the Finder Preferences doesn't solve the issue.

How can I make Desktop disappear permanently?


texts: Scrobble to last.fm with iTunes home sharing

texts:
Is there a way to scrobble to last.fm what I play from my iPhone with home sharing?

Edit: last.fm currently scrobbles when I play right from my iTunes. I am using the last.fm mac app. When I stream music from my iTunes library on my mac with my iPhone, using home sharing, last.fm does not scrobble.


texts: Time Machine extremely slow and writing a lot of log entries

texts:
I am using a MacBook Pro with macOS Sierra 10.12.1
I have to say my backup using Time Machine is extremely slow. I am using an external SSD as backup device. Doing some simple benchmarks writing to this disk could be much faster than Time Machine is doing it. I followed a lot of hints here in this forum and others but not really with success.

More or less by chance I figured out that Time Machine is generating a lot of log entries.

$ sudo log show --style syslog --info | grep 2016-11-26 | grep backup | wc
402026 4892227 71866594

I am not wondering now that it is so slow. It generates for each file a log entry and generating almost 70 MB of data.

And below that's one line of almost 400000 identical lines:

2016-11-26 16:32:54.557384+0100  localhost com.apple.prefs.backup.remoteservice[1345]: (com.apple.prefs.backup.remoteservice) Created Activity ID: 0x8000000000013d1e, Description: Loading Preferences From User CFPrefsD For Search List

It doesn't sound like a misbehaviour.

But is there a way to switch off this intensive logging ?

I assume TS would be much faster.


texts: I want to upgrade my Mac Pro 2,1 to El Capitan. If I go for an HD 5770 gpu does it have to be a Mac specific card. Are there any other compatible GPUs.


texts: WiFi issue brand new 16" MBP - self-assigned IP address

texts:
Brand new 16" MacBook Pro with a highly frustrating issue. Only one potential fix but only works temporarily. Any help is much appreciated.

-
Details
I just received a 16" MBP today, and set it up from Migration Assistant as I've done with many Macs successfully over the years. However, it wouldn't connect to WiFi, stating, "Wi-Fi has the self-assigned IP address 169.254.*. and will not be able to connect to the Internet.

This was when I was connecting to previous known networks. However, it WAS able to connect to one open SSID which I'd never used before successfully.

The only fix that has mysteriously worked is to change the MAC address. When I run the command line on this forum post, the WiFi successfully connects. However, upon restart, it once again reverts to self-assigned IP. (I believe Catalina doesn't allow MAC address changes).

Can anyone please help explain how I can resolve this, why the MAC address change works temporarily, and how I can ensure a more permanent solution? It's a custom ordered 16" MBP that took 5 weeks for delivery, so I'd highly prefer not to send it back.

Here are a list of things I've tried:

Resetting SMC/NVRAM/PRAM
Renew DHCP Lease
Remove/delete network
Delete plist/prefs in the SystemConfiguration
Tried two different hotspots
Tried two physically diff networks at home and work


texts: Whenever I log in into my account on my 5K 27" 2017 iMac, my whole network starts to have a huge ping to internet, but locally everything is fine. When I ping google, I get over 2000 ms on every device. And It happens only on my user account. I tried to use other cable or use wifi, but every time It's the same. It started a week ago. I have Mac Os Catalina installed.


texts: How to backup my iPhone 4S contacts to a CD?

texts:
Even though iTunes is backing up all my contacts while I'm syncing, the backup still exists on a computer. So I would like to make a backup on another physical medium, just in case my computer or iPhone gets destroyed, lost, stolen, etc....
How can I do this?


texts: Is there a way to automatically reduce the rating of a song by X stars when you skip that song?

texts:
For example, to reduce a song's rating by half a star when you skip it (and/or increase it by half when you don't?).

Not sure if this would involve creating a new application or if somehow there's an easy way to do it.

Thanks!


texts: Terminal command to get app switcher information?

texts:
The native app switcher orders the apps based on chronological focus. This ordering is useful to me for a script, but I'm not sure where this ordering information is stored.

Is there a way to get the app switcher list or something similar directly from terminal or applescript? Or a way to investigate where it might be?

I tried to search for this, but all of the results were about hiding apps from the switcher.


texts: iCloud Photos: What happens when deleted from phone

texts: If I delete photos from my All Photos, will they be deleted from iCloud also?


texts: Where can I download Xcode 10 from as I am facing some problems with Xcode 11?

texts:
I need to download XCode 10 as I am facing differences between the version I have now which  is XCode 11.4 and the course I am attending now which uses XCode 10 techniques.

So where can I download it from?


texts:
I need a C compiler and gofrortran to install a package. I was able to get the c complier with:

xcode-select --install

Unfortunately I am having trouble getting a working fortran complier. I know that I should be able to download one here:

https://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/tools/

Any advice?

Update I attempted downloading from HPC and received the following error while untaring:

x usr/local/: Can't set user=0/group=0 for usr/localFailed to set file flags
x usr/local/bin/
x usr/local/.com.apple.installer.keep
x usr/local/libexec/
x usr/local/include/
x usr/local/lib/
x usr/local/share/
x usr/local/share/man/
x usr/local/share/locale/
......
x usr/local/libexec/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.5.0/7.3.0/plugin/gengtype
x usr/local/bin/gcov
x usr/local/bin/g++
x usr/local/bin/gfortran
x usr/local/bin/gcc-ranlib
x usr/local/bin/gcov-tool
x usr/local/bin/gcc-nm
x usr/local/bin/gcc-ar
x usr/local/bin/gcc
x usr/local/bin/gcov-dump
x usr/local/bin/cpp
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors.


texts: Test a USB-drive/SSD for bad sectors/blocks?

texts: A pretty expensive (Samsung) USB-drive I have causes weird errors. The problem might be a computer I have connected it to (this computer's SSD broke down in a similar way) but to rule out that it is this USB stick that is broken I would like to perform a hardware test on it. How can I do that on a Mac?


texts: Is it possible to downgrade an iPhone from iOS 8 to iOS 7?

texts:
iOS 8 in my iPhone 5 drains the battery, I'd like to return to iOS 7 if I can.

Is it possible?


texts: Round displayed value in Numbers for iOS to 2 decimals

texts: Say I have the value 2.3638383 in a cell in Numbers for iOS (iPhone). Can I format the numbers so only 2 decimal places are shown (rounded to nearest decimal)? So 2.3638383 would be displayed as 2.36?


texts: Safari not opening local html files after upgrading to macOS Catalina Beta

texts: I recently upgraded to macOS Catalina (10.15 Beta (19A546d)) on my Mid 2014 MacBook Pro. Then I can not open local html files on Safari (13.0 (15608.2.5)) and got the following error message. However, I can open websites on Safari and local html files on Chrome and Firefox. I don't have any third-party security software.


texts: How to improve the performance of a Ubuntu Virtual Machine running in VirtualBox?

texts:
I'm using VirtualBox 6.0.4 to run a Ubuntu 18.0.4 guest on a MacBook Pro 2018 host with macOS Mojave. The MacBook host has an i7 processor and 16GB of RAM. In addition to VirtualBox, I'm running Google Chrome. According to Mac Activity Monitor, the CPU is mostly (90%) idle.

The virtual machine is too sluggish - whenever I drag a window across the screen it moves slowly, and rather than moving around the screen smoothly, it abruptly changes its location.

Currently, the Virtual Machine has the following configuration:

12 GB base memory
6 processors
Acceleration: VT-x/AMD-V, Nested Paging, KVM Paravirtualization
128 MB video memory
3D acceleration enabled
IDE Primary Master: VBox Guest Additions

I've read some suggestions here and in other forums, but I haven't found a solution that works. So far I've tried the following:

Installing VirtualBox Guest Additions
Installing VirtualBox Extension Pack
Increasing the base memory up to the maximum (valid)
Increasing the number of CPUs to 6 (from a total of 12)
Increasing the video memory to the maximum
Switching the graphics controller to VBoxVGA
Enabling 3D acceleration

I've read that decreasing the number of CPUs and the base memory results in better performance, but I've tried this as well (and multiple other combinations) to no avail.

Are there any settings that I should check which I haven't mentioned?

If you have found a configuration "sweet spot," I would thank you if you could point me in the correct direction.

EDIT:

Below are a few screenshots showing CPU usage and memory pressure.


texts: Looking for a right angled connector for my 15" Touchbar MacBook Pro

texts:
Currently I have an LG Ultra Fine 5K Display and a MacBook Pro with TouchBar.  I have one cable connecting my laptop to the monitor that takes care of power, display and USB.  I'm using the cable that came with the monitor.

I'm looking for either a right angle connector or a cable with one right angled connector that does all of the above.

I've tried the Goliton? 90 Degree Right Angled USB-C USB 3.1 Type-C Male to Female Extension Data Cable for Macbook Tablet - 20CM with no luck

I'd prefer something with this shape but will be happy with any right angle, even if it's a short cable "dongle."  Does such a thing exist and, if so, does anyone have a recommendation?


texts: Used boot camp for windows - cannot select partition at boot up

texts:
I'm used boot camp and created a partition for windows. It gave the usual directions to insert windows CD. I did that and follows the installation instructions. When windows started up I inserted the OSX Leopard disk to install the drivers.

Now I cannot restart to OSX. It automatically starts to windows every time. I cannot hold down option and choose the partition. I didn't overwrite the OSX partition. It shows up when I click on "My Computer". Whats going on? Did I accidentally overwrite the OSX boot loader?


texts:
I realise what I am about to ask could be considered impossible to answer but maybe a discussion might be helpful to other people.

I am trying to use Screen Sharing (OS X 10.7.5) to control a Windows 7 PC at a remote site which is running Ultra VNC. I keep getting 'system not responding' errors in the applications I am using on the remote PC, even though when I am onsite I never get them. It's making things pretty hard work as I'm essentially locked out of the application for anywhere between 10-30 seconds at a time. I'm pretty certain that something to do with VNC is causing the problems and have had the same when using Chicken of the VNC on my Mac as well, does anyone have some recommendations as to what to do in this scenario?


texts: Sync only Desktop folder, but not Documents, with "Store in iCloud"? (iCloud Drive)

texts:
The Store in iCloud function that was introduced with macOS Sierra looks interesting to try out. It will store both the Desktop and the Documents folders in iCloud Drive instead of on the local drive.

I want it to store only the Desktop folder in iCloud, and not the Documents folder. Is this possible?

I noticed that by turning On and Off the Store in iCloud function, the files that had already been transfered to iCloud Drive (when the function was originally turned On) stayed there – and empty folders called Desktop — Local and Documents — Local were created in the user home directory.

So is it possible to make use of this circumstance, to keep only Desktop files in the iCloud? Will applications that make use of the Documents folder decide to use the iCloud folder or the local folder?

Update MacOS Catalina:

I don't think toxefa's answer below is working anymore with macOS Catalina. Upgrading the OS created a new empty Desktop folder in the user home directory. I tried deleting that Desktop folder via Terminal (rm -rf /Users/<yourusername>/Desktop) and then created a symlink per the answer ln -s /Users/<yourusername>/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Desktop /Users/<yourusername>/Desktop, but after reboot the symlink is gone and a new empty Desktop folder is always created in the home directory.


texts: The L2TP-VPN server did not respond - OS X Mountain Lion (happened after change of Router)

texts:
I used to be able to connect to VPNgate's servers

but ever since I changed to a new router (one of the new Netgear Nighthawks), it just stopped working.

I followed the guide on their site to setup the vpn connection, and it worked before. Now, it just gives me an error:

The L2TP-VPN server did not respond. Try reconnecting. If the problem
continues, verify your settings and contact your Administrator.

I tried the following:

Rebooted computer many times
Configured around with the keychain access (some people reported to have success once they allowed all applications to access vpn certificate)
Looked around router settings but saw nothing special

I am using a Macbook Pro Retina 15 inch, and I am running OS X 10.8.2

Below is a log of what happens when I try to connect.

4/22/15 5:20:19.815 PM pppd[15702]: IPSec connection started
4/22/15 5:20:19.825 PM racoon[15703]: Connecting.
4/22/15 5:20:19.826 PM racoon[15703]: IPSec Phase1 started (Initiated by me).
4/22/15 5:20:19.826 PM racoon[15703]: IKE Packet: transmit success. (Initiator, Main-Mode message 1).
4/22/15 5:20:22.828 PM racoon[15703]: IKE Packet: transmit success. (Phase1 Retransmit).
4/22/15 5:20:25.527 PM com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.apple.dynamic_pager[15704]) Exited with code: 1
4/22/15 5:20:25.527 PM com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.apple.dynamic_pager) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
4/22/15 5:20:25.831 PM racoon[15703]: IKE Packet: transmit success. (Phase1 Retransmit).
4/22/15 5:20:28.833 PM racoon[15703]: IKE Packet: transmit success. (Phase1 Retransmit).
4/22/15 5:20:29.827 PM pppd[15702]: IPSec connection failed


texts: My itunes songs won't appear at all on my mac book

texts: On my old computer I had a bunch of songs on itunes, and when I went on my mac there are no songs on that computer even though I am logged on my itunes account. Where are my songs?


texts:
Mac's caffeinate tool accepts the name of a utility: caffeinate sleep 1, for instance.  Is there any way for it to accept a function as well?  For example:

function mysleep {
  sleep 2
}

caffeinate mysleep    # mysleep: No such file or directory


texts: iPhone Photos Geolocation Displayed in Wrong Language

texts:
My phone language has almost always been set to English and I've always had my geolocation on for my pictures. A couple of months ago I rearranged the Preferred Language Order to bring Persian to the top, over English, to check something in an app. Then I reverted it to the previous order, English on top.

Note that there's a difference between iPhone Language and Preferred Language Order and Persian is NOT among the supported languages for iPhone Language; I can only add it to the locale list (Preferred Language Order) and if I move it to the top, it'll adapt the locale for the apps that do support it.

Since I did this, the Photos app switched all my previous geolocation tags to Arabic (which is the closest supported language to Persian!)

How can I fix this so that the names appear in English again while the phone language is set to English and those photos were taken in an English speaking country long before I'd changed the language?

I've tried rebooting the phone as suggested here but that did not help. I've also completely removed Persian from the Preferred Language Order list, and nothing has changed.


texts: Is there a way to force photoanalysisd to work harder than it does by default?

texts:
I migrated my rather large Photos library from El Capitan to High Sierra probably around 2-3 months ago. To this day, the Photos app still reports that it hasn't completed its analysis of all the faces.

I am aware that leaving the Photos.app open will pause its analysis so I have left it closed most of the time. As well, I have tracked the CPU time that the process is consuming so I do know that it is doing something.

Is there a way to kick the process into a more aggressive mode? I mean, why does it have to do everything so tenderly in background mode? It is almost like it is trying not to use my disk or CPU at all and quite frankly I've got a desktop with 8 cores, plenty of RAM and such and I wouldn't mind if it burned my CPU for 2-3 days to just get it all done.

To clarify: this is not a matter of a low priority or lack of CPU/RAM as the machine has plenty to spare and is left alone most of the time not doing anything. It is a question of if there is a config/setting that can tell the process to work hard on the problem rather than VERY passively?

Any ideas?


texts: Airport slows down when anybody uses VPN through it

texts:
I have a MBP with OSX 10.7.3, from which I use a VPN connection (Cisco IPSec) to login on my company network. That in itself is not a problem.

I also have an Airport Extreme (version 7.6.1) as the backbone of my home network using ADSL to my ISP. That in itself is not a problem, either.

But the combination of the two is a major problem for everybody in the house. Especially those that play online games...

Whenever I connect to the company network, I can see the ping latency go from 20 ms to 600 ms for the ADSL leg. And is not just from my machine, but for every machine in the house. Which should mean the problem is in the Airport.

I have of cause been looking at all the usual sites, but cannot find anything similar reported before...

Without the VPN connection:

traceroute to dr.dk (195.137.194.128), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  10.0.1.1  3.293 ms  0.784 ms  0.693 ms
2  nn.nn.nn.nn  19.489 ms  18.837 ms  23.681 ms
3  ...

With the VPN connection:

traceroute to dr.dk (195.137.194.128), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  10.0.1.1  2.515 ms  0.553 ms  2.898 ms
2  nn.nn.nn.nn  688.489 ms  650.996 ms  690.190 ms
3  ...

So the question is: Does anybody know what is going on here? Do you know of any solution? E.g. should I downgrade the Airport software?


texts: How to switch Preview's full screen default setting from "two-pages" to "continuous scroll"?

texts:
Whenever I open a pdf, Preview.app opens it in "continuous scroll" mode. However, when going into fullscreen mode, it switches to "two-pages" when, really, I want it to use whatever view mode I had it, in this case: "continuous scroll".

Anyone know how to remedy this? Or perhaps suggest an alternative to Preview.app?

I'm on Mavericks OSX 10.9.2.


texts: I have re installed my mac to fresh El Capitan on my MacBook Pro. Now at the app store it is showing the Catalina version Updates but when I click on Download nothing is happening. I have previously used it but since after the fresh installation download is not working. How can I fix it? After clicking the download button, the download button fades like this but nothing is happening. Internet is working properly as well.


texts: How to show programs installed with brew in Launchpad?

texts:
I've installed many programs with homebrew, but only one is shown in Launchpad. How can I show also others in that menu?

I have to open them from CLI, but someone has difficult name to remember and I want add them in Dock.


texts:
I try to find out whether a Wi-Fi card plus or cable or some software issue going on with my mid-2012 MacBook Pro.
I tried almost all the different hardware resets starting with SMC and NVRAM reset; started up in safe mode just as what can read here. None of these resets solved my problem.
I also tried to run Apple Diagnostic according to this page which failed with the error message: ...Cannot Load 'EFI/Drivers/TestSupport.effi'... . It came clear that there some hardware incompatibility which cause this to happen.
As a walk around I ran System Diagnostic under Activity Monitor which unfortunately was not too informative. After this, I checked the Console app which listed out "No Wi-Fi hardware, failed to initialize WiFiAgent" under "Errors and Faults".
Do anybody have any idea whether the problem is software or hardware related? Right now I am totally confused. If it is hardware related, how do I determine whether my Wi-Fi card or the Wi-Fi cable or both have failed? Bluetooth works without any problem.
Thanks for your help and answers in advance!
All the best


texts:
My default language is English, but I also sometimes type in Czech. I have added a Czech keyboard to OS X, and can switch between the two easily. The trouble is that OS X has no native Czech dictionary.

If I download Czech .AFF and .DIC files, I can place them inside /Library/Spelling/, but OS X does not switch which dictionary it uses for continuous spell-checking. I have "Automatic by Language" selected in the Keyboard preference pane, but this seems to work very sporadically, if at all.

Is there an easy solution here I am missing, or is this it? It seems odd that the keyboard and dictionary would not be linked, like they are in iOS. Any help would be appreciated!


texts: Create a playlist of songs loved/likes on Apple Music

texts:
I've been listening to the Apple Music thing that came out in iOS 8.4 and I've been clicking the little heart button on the songs I've liked assuming I'd be able to find these songs again.

Is there anyway to get a list/playlist of the songs I've clicked the heart button for?


texts: Applescript to get MS Word current word count?

texts: Is there an AppleScript command which will grab the word count of the currently open Microsoft Word® document?


texts: Why automatically adjust brightness doesn't work after I change the brightness manually using the hot keys although it's set to do so in the displays configuration?


texts:
Is there a shortcut (or the ability to assign one) to pan in Preview app?

It is quite troublesome to keep moving the mouse to and fro the scrollbars when we want to scroll.


texts: How can I prevent a forced iOS7 upgrade when restoring iPhone 4s from backup

texts:
For some reason my iPhone 4s (running on latest iOS 6 and never jailbroken) has crashed and is stuck on a rebooting loop. I tried to restore my iPhone from a backup I made about a week ago. iTunes prompted me to install the latest version (11.1) and I went ahead and did this, remembering that I saw somewhere that you need to be running the latest version of iTunes to be able to restore.

However, as soon as it picks up the iPhone in recovery and I press "Restore" it forces me to update to iOS 7.  At this point I have pressed "cancel", as I'm concerned that if I go ahead and update, I won't be able to restore my phone with last weeks backup, because this  was backed up under iOS 6.

How can I restore the phone to iOS 6 and recover my backup?


texts: How can I figure out which keychain entries a process wants access to

texts:
I'm getting really tired of seeing this:

As I understand it, ubd (the Ubiquity daemon) is responsible for the “Documents and Data” portion of iCloud's syncing. However, all of my iCloud-related data are in a separate, non-locking keychain.

How can I tell which keychain entries a particular process is trying to access? Failing that general case, does anybody know which keys specifically ubd needs access to?


texts: I have my custom keyboard layout, I am using in OS but in login screen, it is not listing in login screen. I made layout with Ukelele.


texts: Is there a way to automatically have the iPhone send photo attachments in max resolutions instead of always asking me. it know it just one more step to push an additional button but it's really annoying.


texts: FileVault decryption process stuck + iCloud login fail + regular shutdown impossible. What is the problem?

texts:
so I am assuming the following problems are all connected as they all appeared more or less at the same time, so please allow me to quickly recap: I have a Macbook mid 2012, 10.13.6 High Sierra.

Half a year ago my Macbook wouldn't start ("prohibitory"-signal). Went to repair shop. Told me it was the internal hard drive cable, which after some time can get too hot, apparently a common issue for this model. Changed it, everything runs fine again.

Some months later (this week): Macbook is starting to behave slowly, gets stuck, with a spinning wait cursor which I can still move but it would not react when clicking on stuff. Then, after a while it would allow me to do something again, before going back into spinning wait cursor. Silly me was thinking, mh, let's restart, but hey, there is anyhow this system update waiting! So in one moment of control, I clicked to update: it downloaded and restarted. After restarting the update would be stuck after like half a centimeter progress. I waited more than half a hour. No progress, so I forced a shutdown. After restart, new problem: it would simply freeze when I enter my login information and not start the system.

Again, I went to the repair shop. Eventually he would try again replacing the internal hard drive cable. That solved the issue again. I told him that the one cable I got recently was not old. He said, it's because FileVault can cause this which he recommended me to deactivate. Back at home I try exactly that.

Problem 1: Filevault decryption is stuck and wouldn't progress, it always says "two hours remaining". Also after "restart" (see 2.), it stays the same saying two hours remaining.

Problem 2: A clean restart is impossible. When trying to shut down or restart, it would stay forever at this black screen where you only see this rotating loading icon. So, I always have to force shutdown, then start again.

Problem 3: Another thing which is new, that suddenly I cannot login to my iCloud sometimes (weirdly it worked in the Appstore, but never in Mail)

Problem 4: also appeared just now. When I am in the university using their Wlan, I have to re-enter my login information every time after the macbook was in standby mode. This seems unrelated, but it never happened before.

Problem 5: Maybe also unrelated, but only occurred now, so probably not. A program (ableton) would suddenly not start anymore and simply say that it cannot be opened. I also cannot find it under applications anymore which never happened before.

Disk Utility says it could not deactivate starting volume but found errors that would have to be repaired by disk utility in recovery mode.
Other than that it said (excerpt):

"

...

Checking the APFS suberblock.

Checking the object map.

warning: omap (oid 0x9a2c3): invalid om_flags (0x4)

error: om: btn: invalid o_oid (0x8f422)

Object map is invalid.

The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 could not be verified completely.

...

"

One thing that kinda bothers me is, I am still not sure if the beforementioned update was installed after all. In the app store it does not show up under "recently installed updates", it is simply gone.

I will probably try to do as disk utility says, and repair from recovery mode, however I am a bit hesitant as I am new to Macbooks, and not familiar with these recovery routines, what it entails, whether data loss is possible etc. So before I wanted to ask if it's maybe a known issue.

Last thing: I have a TimeMachine backup basically from one day before this whole mess (before the thing with the update happened). Does this help? I feel the issue is somehow deeper.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance


texts: Folder Action for automatic file name cleanup

texts:
I want to build a folder action that cleans up the filenames of my downloaded files.

For example Youtube_MyVideofile_(1080p_30fps_H264-128kbit_AAC).mp4 should be stripped by "Youtube" "30fps" "128kbit" "AAC" "(" ")" and "_" should be replaced to a "space". So the result would be MyVideofile 1080p H264.mp4

I know I could do this with Automator but then I have to set up a "search/replace" element for every word. I'd rather use a single list of words which would be easier to maintain, because I have a lot of different sources where I get files from on regular bases, so the actual list of words to be removed will be very long and may be updated from time to time.

I found this Automator or AppleScript to Remove Multiple Strings from File Names?
which is similar, but it only worked with selected folders. Instead I want to set it up so it works automatically as a folder action.

I guess therefore I also need a whitelist of file extensions that the script wont touch, such as ".download" for safari-downloads that are still in progress.


texts: Cannot change IPv6 Mode on my Airport Extreme (5th generation) using Ariport Utility 6

texts:
My provider recently added support for IPv6 and I wanted to configure it on my side. Unfortunately Airport Utility does not allow me to select appropriate IPv6 mode and I'm stuck with the tunnel mode which my provider does not support:

In this mode Airport Utility keeps telling me about "IPv6 Rely Error".


texts: Error while trying to open new Emacs.app after upgrade to Yosemite

texts:
After upgrade to Yosemite I get this when trying to launch new Emacs app from command-line. I've spent yesterday trying to figure out what's the problem, so today I decided to ask here.

➜  ~  open -n -a Emacs
LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed for the application /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/Emacs.app with error -10810.

Edit: might be helpful, info from /var/log/system.log:

Oct 20 16:02:49 Kostiantyns-MacBook-Pro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.system): Caller not allowed to perform action: open.2674, action = service submission, code = 1: Operation not permitted, uid = 501, euid = 501, gid = 20, egid = 20, asid = 100005
Oct 20 16:02:49 Kostiantyns-MacBook-Pro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.system): Caller not allowed to perform action: open.2674, action = legacy spawn, code = 1: Operation not permitted, uid = 501, euid = 501, gid = 20, egid = 20, asid = 100005
Oct 20 16:02:49 Kostiantyns-MacBook-Pro.local open[2674]: spawn_via_launchd() failed, errno=1 label=[0x0-0xbf0bf].org.gnu.Emacs path=/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs flags=0 : LaunchApplicationClient.cp #963 LaunchApplicationWithSpawnViaLaunchD() q=com.apple.main-thread
Oct 20 16:02:49 Kostiantyns-MacBook-Pro.local open[2674]: spawn_via_launchd() failed, errno=1 label=[0x0-0xbf0bf].org.gnu.Emacs path=/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs flags=0


texts: How can I tell Apple iCloud to forget or delete system configuration settings?

texts:
I've noticed that whenever I setup a new iMac or MacBook, that small system configurations from older/other systems are copied over to my new system as soon as I login to iCloud.  While I like iCloud for syncing files across desktops, I don't necessarily want each of my systems to share the same configurations.  It's a granular as the speed of my pointer or the touch settings on the trackpad.  With a couple iMac's and a physically different layout in my offices, this shared configuration is obtrusive and I frequently need to revise it.  Is there a way to enjoy some iCloud features on one Apple ID account, but not have every system configuration shared?
I've noticed other settings sync in the past, but "Tap to click" and "Tracking speed" are the most annoying.  On one of my physical desks, I've my trackpad off to the side like "normal" people :P. At my other office, I've the trackpad and keyboard in a container laid out like a MacBook so bumping it with my palm causes a tap-to-click, so I have to turn it off. If I turn it back on on the other system, it updates both.


texts: If I buy Angry Birds on iPad and iPhone, do I have to buy it again on the Mac App Store?

texts: I just wanted to be able to play on a bigger screen... but have already paid $4.99 for Angry Bird on iPad.  It is the exact same game (same content) on the Mac... do I have to pay again actually?  (if the answer is yes or no, can you quote some source for reference?)  thanks.


texts: New non-retina 13.3" mac, will I get OS registered in the app store?

texts:
I'm thinking of buying a 13.3" MacBook Pro that a store has at low prices right now.

Will this come with the OS registered in the app store? I ask because I plan to switch out the disk for an SSD, and with my previous MacBook Pro I could simply input my App Store credentials during boot and it would download and install everything directly.

Can I do this with a new MacBook Pro, or will I have to buy a separate copy in the app store to get this function?


texts: Set a Display colour profile via Terminal or AppleScript? (Macbook)

texts:
I would like to be able to change the display colour profile of my MacBook, with a view to writing a program that changes the loaded colour profile on a shortcut key-press, or automatically at certain times. Does anyone know of a Terminal or AppleScript command that could load an existing colour profile? I am aware that this could be achieved through UI scripting of the System Preferences application, but I'm not a fan as UI manipulation tends to be slow, messy and unreliable.

I know the .icc colour profiles used are stored at /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/, but opening one of the .icc files only starts ColorSync Utility, and I can't see an obvious way to load them.

I am using a 2007 MacBook (not Pro or Air), a "Core 2 Duo" 2.16 GHz model, running Snow Leopard version 10.6.8. I am pretty sure f.lux is not supported on Snow Leopard, and I would like more manual control anyway.


texts: Accidentially broke a header - but do I really need to worry?

texts:
I was upgrading the memory, SSD and optical drive (modded a blu-ray drive with the original upper shell from the SuperDrive) in a MacBook 2010 White Polycarbonate a1342 when I realized that one of the headers was...gone.

It turns out I may have accidentially broken it off, I think. So I took the cable and taped it somewhere else for the meantime.

The hader I think I have broken off is in the corner between the battery and optical drive. There are two very flat, slim headers with cables coming from - seemingly - the battery part, and they both plug in there. I somehow broke the other header, whilst not having even touched it after putting the plug back in (and it took me forever to do this with my fingers...). But when I was leaning back, I noticed that the bottom cable was loose again and when I tried to re-insert it, the corresponding header for it seemed to have disappeared.

I tried to find out what header it was, but unfortunately, all that shows up is the "Power on Pads" related topics and pinouts, with the MagSafe adapter included. But it does not tell me what header is on there, and if it is important or not.

After putting it together, I booted the laptop and it seemingly had no errors turning on. True, I have no OS on there right now but it still seems to be fine. The optical drive also seems to be powered and lets me insert stuff into it.

What do you think the broken header is, and how can I find it out? The cable seems to have two pins, whilst the other looks like having three. The 2-pin one has no socket anymore.

EDIT: I shared these pictures on Discord as I tried to get some additional help.

Header area:
* https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/516146586263486499/654435822237646849/IMG_0999.jpg
* https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/516146586263486499/654435825441964053/IMG_0998.jpg

The now header-less plug: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/516146586263486499/654435822631649290/IMG_0997.jpg


texts: Where are iTunes smart playlists stored on disk?

texts:
I want to create a Best albums smart playlist containing a somewhat reasonable number of songs :

the rule Album rating is greater than ★★★ result in a 221 songs playlist.
wheareas the rule Album rating is greater than ★★ result in a 4000+ songs playlist.

I understand why those numbers, but still I would prefer that the resulting playlist contains ~1000 songs : hence my need to have access to the smart playlist file definition so I can overwrite the ratings representation inside.

Other approach tried : activate half star ratings (to create a 'greater than 3.5 stars' rule), but if half star is activated for song rating in the main window, it is not the case for the smart playlist dialog.


texts: Macbook's Arabic keyboard layout mistakes and missing characters!

texts:
I'm familiar enough with the Arabic language, but not sure if those points down below are considered to be mistakes from apple designers or not, also I've checked with the official layout of Apple's docs and my mac device! So I'm hopping for a clear answer or more information. Thank you in advance.

Missing characters in the keyboard layout.

Arabic decimal separator ٫ Shift+ن or K U+066B is not labeled!
Arabic thousands separator ٬ Shift+م or L U+066C is not labeled!
Apostrophe ' Shift+ظ or Z U+0027 is not labeled!

Incorrect layout

Guillemet/Angle quotes « »

The layout is reversed! (Not sure about this as Arabic is RTL)

Shift+ش or A and Shift+س or S U+00AB and U+00BB

Left-pointing double angle quotation mark « U+00AB when pressed it gives a ».
Right-pointing double angle quotation mark » U+00BB when pressed it gives a «.

This is correct in English language since it is LTR but in case of Arabic it makes some confusion!

Appreciate any help or a clarification.


texts:
Is there a way I can tell which NetBoot server a client machine has booted off of, from within the client machine itself?

This is kind of an obscure question, but I am in an environment that has two identical NetBoot servers. On the Startup Disk System Pref pane, each NetBoot 'volume' has the server IP address associated with it. But once the client has booted, is there a way I can determine which server it used/is using?


texts: Some app or service block macbook from locking

texts: I have default settings for sleep mode. But still if go away and return to my macbook I see that it is not locked. I guess some app blocks it from locking. How can I find which one?


texts: Creating video DVD from MP4 (1,7 GB) takes ages on MacBook 13" 2,16 GHz / 3 GB RAM

texts:
Is that normal?

I downloaded a Video (MP4 format, HD, 1.7 GB) from the Internet and wanted to burn it on DVD to watch it with our DVD Recorder.

I used Toast 11 to create the DVD on MacOS X 10.6 and since several hours (!) it is "coding" the file.

IS it normal that it takes so long to create a DVD from MP4?

OK, the hardware is not really up to date, but can it be so slow or can I do something to make it run faster?


texts: Unable to run 'display notification' using osascript in a tmux session

texts:
If I run the following command in Apple Script Editor directly,

display notification "Hello, world"

I can see a  notification as expected

However if I tried to invoke it via command line:

 osascript  -e 'display notification "Hello, world"'

It turns out I am running it in a tmux session. If I just ran the command in my default shell, it works as expected.

How can I get it to work with tmux?


texts: How to make macOS and iOS connect to the stronger WiFi

texts:
I have a modem/router in my room which is at the back of the house. As I was having poor reception in the front side of my home, I've got one of the cheap ADSL routers and I'm using that as another hotspot (connected via ethernet to my fiber router) and I'm using that for the WiFi at the living room. Whenever I come home from outside, I first pass through the living room momentarily to get to my room. And all my Apple devices insist on automatically connecting to the living room's hotspot, which has poor reception in my room. If it connects even once, it will not automatically connect to the much stronger hotspot unless I turn off Wifi and turn it on again manually. It sucks because when I arrive home, I almost always need to turn off Wifi on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro, which is extremely inconvenient.

Deleting the living room's password from my keychain would obviously avoid the issue, though I'd always need to re-enter the password and delete it afterwards when I use the internet at the living room, which is even more inconvenient.

I've also tried naming them the same, but it messes everything up (and apparently causes problems with routing) so I'd better keep the SSIDs separate.

How do I solve this problem?


texts: Why does the iPad use nearest-neighbour scaling rather than Retina scaling for iPhone apps

texts:
When Apple announced the iPad, one of the features was the possibility of running iPhone apps, optionally scaling to 2x size with blurry results.

Fast forward to the announcement of the iPhone 4 and Retina display. The iPhone 4 uses the same apps as the legacy iPhone, only scaling images that don't have a higher resolution available. For everything else, the final render is as crispy as an app designed for the Retina display would be.

Both piece of hardware need to do exactly the same thing: scale up an app designed for the lower resolution legacy iPhones to twice its size. However the scheme used by the iPad ends up with blurry text and buttons, while the iPhone4 keeps everything crispy. Why didn't Apple change the scaling code to the same one used by the iPhone 4 with iOS 4?


texts: Metadata to ensure audio CD has tracks in the correct order when burned from iTunes

texts:
I have a public domain audiobook from librivox.org which I want to put on CD for a blind friend.  I want to add a table of contents to the beginning of each CD.  The total length will take six CDs without a lot to spare, so I am planning on seven after I add the TOC files.

The files already have track numbers matching the 27 chapter numbers, i.e., 1 0f 27, 2 of 27, …, 27 of 27.  Since I only have ten blank CDs, and they are CD-R (write only once), I am reluctant to answer this by experimenting.

Do I need to renumber all the files, including my additions, so that each CD starts with track 1 of N?  Or can I make my additions track 0 of 27, disk X of 7 and still have the addition be the first track on its CD?

Or to put it another way, if the metadata for disk two is 0/27, 5/27, 6/27, etc. will the CD be in that order?  Or scrambled, or even just create an error message?

When I imported an unrelated two-disc album, the CDDB made it two separate albums, so I can't judge by that.

Would it work better to take them out of iTunes and burn the CDs some other way?


texts: Mavericks Dock icons have become corrupted. Is there a cache to flush or a database to rebuild?

texts:
I'm running OS X Mavericks 10.9.1. Some of my Dock icons for running applications, including the Finder icon, now appear blank and empty, or as a square filled with random noise pixels.

I have tried "Verify Disk" in Recovery mode, and it detects no errors. I have Repaired Permissions and rebooted.

Is there some cache to flush or database to rebuild that could fix this seemingly harmless but annoying anomaly?


texts: How big should my Time Machine backup drive be?

texts:
My 13" MacBook Pro has 500GB internal hard drive space, and I bought a 1TB external HDD to use as my Time Machine backup. I only read from many articles that the backup should be about 2 to 3 times the size of my hard drive, but I feel like 1TB will never be filled up, and in fact, leave a lot of free space.

I understand that Time Machine takes a snapshot of my whole system and stores it in the backup drive. But say, for example, only about 120GB of my internal HDD is in use. Then it'll only take a snapshot that's about 120GB in size, and while that same snapshot will grow over time as I take more recent snapshots of my system, it will never go beyond 500GB because that's the maximum size of my internal HDD. Or do I have it wrong? How does Time Machine work, really?

I'm asking this because I want to know if I should use a separate external HDD for storing my actual files.


texts: Is it possible to redefine the keyboard shortcut for deleting files to [delete] loosing the [command]?

texts:
Is it possible to redefine the keyboard shortcut for deleting files to delete loosing the command ?
How?


texts: Are there any iPhone cases compatible with full-body iPhone films (i.e. films on the sides)?

texts: I am a kind of person who likes to keep their phone out without a case most of the time (except for outdoor sporting trips), so I have a full body invisible shield which does NOT work well with any cases I try because of the added size on the antenna sides. The best solution I found was the Defender OtterBox, but that renders the invisible shield ruined after applying the case. Does anyone know of cases designed with full body shields in mind?


texts:
Is there a way to have Mac Mail compress images to PNG rather than JPEG by default?  I've noticed that a high resolution JPEG source image looks better when compressed to a low resolution PNG than a low resolution JPEG.

Screenshots can be saved as PNGs with this:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

I'm looking for something analogous to this.


texts: Determine the location of a shared folder in Win7

texts: I am now using Mac OS 10.8, and want to write a script (.sh) to copy some files from Mac to the shared folder of a Win7 computer. I can access the Win7 computer shared folder via Finder, but I do not know the location of the Win7 shared folder when I write the script.


texts: Are there voices in different languages installed in Mac OS X? E.g. spanish, french or slovak? (latest iPod Nano built-in voiceover has beautiful slovak voice, I'd like to try it on Mac OS X too)


texts: View printers from Windows Print Server on a Mac

texts:
On windows,

  Get-Printer -ComputerName \\XXX

will give me a list of printers that exist on that print server. I wanted to accomplish the same\similar thing using a Mac.

The issue\reason:at my workplace, we have articles on how to add a windows network printer on a Mac. However, staffs without a windows machine won't know what the printer name is as we have hundreds of printers.


texts: Can we create seprate Apple ID for our each iOS device but share the same media library?

texts:
My family and I (4 users) are using 4 iOS devices on a single Apple/iTunes account. We started with iPhone 4, and over the years we have added devices for my wife and 2 kids and as a result now we have a massive iTunes music library.

Now everyone wants their email, calendar, and contacts sync to iCloud and keep those separate, but they still want to use the same media library. Is this possible?


texts: How can access to start up menu on Macbook Air 2011?

texts:
I have a Macbook air 2011 /4g/ 11" , I format my hdd from disk utility and now I want to access to startup menu to reinstall it, I try that with holding option key and it just show me the internet recovery, my  internet speed is very low, after about 8 hours it's show me the start up menu finally and ask me to reinstall the lion 1.7 so on that time because of some issues I just turn my macbook off because I think everything downloaded,

Now, again when i turn it on for continue the installing process it's show me again the internet recovery and want to download from internet again

How can I access to the downloaded data and continue the installation (command+r and option key again get me directly to Internet Recovery)?


texts: How to automatically trigger a iOS Shortcut (based on location/calendar)

texts:
I've done a lot of research and it looks like the only way to run Apple iOS shortcuts is manually - i.e. you have to manually do the trigger - either by pressing a button, getting Siri to do it (by 'manually asking') or by (manually) getting another app to run it. I've yet to be able to get another app to run it automatically (yes, I'm sure this is to do with security/privacy implications, but if it's based on a shortcut that's only on my phone, then I'm happy with the security/privacy).

I've looked at getting IFTTT to run the trigger (which it can do - for example, based on my location, or based on the start of an event in my Google Calendar), however the 'most' I can then do is to get that trigger to run an IFTTT Rich Notification on my iPhone - yes I can then click on that notification pop-up (which launches a shortcut via shortcuts://open-shortcut?name=[name]), but that still relies on me clicking the shortcut.

A couple of people have run iOS shortcuts as the trigger for an IFTTT action, but I'm trying to do this the other way around.

So what I'd like to be able to do is this:

run an iOS shortcut when I leave a location
run it with no manual intervention


texts: I can't see my photos on my iPad mini from Windows 8

texts: Up until recently, I've been able to download the photos and videos off of my iPad mini onto my Windows 8 box. However, the last time I plugged it into the computer, Windows updated the driver that it uses to get at the iPad's files, and now all I see in the Explorer window is an empty Internal Files folder. How do I get at the photos and videos from my PC? I might add that they're all in the camera roll, so according to this answer to another question, I should be able to see them.


texts: I've got iPhone 4S and I wanna sell it...I have backed up contacts on http://icloud.com ...Does contacts remain on http://icloud.com after reseting all iPhone settings?


texts: Can I transfer purchased content from an iPhone to an authorised PC

texts:
Ok so on computer 1, I have setup my iPhone, authorised computer 1 and downloaded some content from iTunes, and put this onto my iPhone.

I have just authorised computer 2, can I transfer the data on my iPhone to computer 2 or do I need to re-download everything?

It seems a bit of a waste having to re-download everything (a couple of gigabytes) when all of the content is already sitting right there on my iPhone.

I'm not trying to do anything dodgy, just trying to transfer some purchased apps/music from a non-jailbroken iPhone to a properly authorised computer, why does Apple make this so difficult?

This is my first apple device so I am new to the whole apple ecosystem, can somebody help me carry out this simple task?

Thanks


texts:
macOS Sierra 10.12.6, Mail.app 10.3,

I can change the size of the message list font in Mail > Preferences > Fonts & Colors, and the change is reflected in Mail.app's message list. However, changes to the message font are not reflected by a change in the message display.

This behavior appears on two computers, a Macbook Pro 7,1 (mid-2010) and a Macbook Air 6,1 (mid-2013). Both computers' software is updated. In all other respects, both computers operate correctly.

Is there a cache or plist to clear or something else to do to allow the message font size to change?


texts:
It sounds like Time Machine doesn't backup everything on Mac Server:
http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/restoring-mac-os-x-server-from-time-machine/

So what options do I have? Ideally I'd like a backup that I can restore on another Mac Mini and have it up and running instantly. Carbon Copy Cloner sounds like it should work, but I didn't see anything on their site that said it would definitely backup Mac Server (or I missed it).

Does anyone have a recommendation on what to do?


texts: Is it possible to find the serial number of stolen devices using a Mac that they've been connected to?

texts:
For a number of devices that were stolen, can I find their serial number on a Mac that I still have and which the devices have been connected to at some point? In other words, are there any applications (or the OS) which might have kept a record of any of these devices' serial number(s)? I'm specifically thinking about:

iPod
Cinema Display
Time Capsule
another Mac
a camera

Would the connections have shown up in a log file somewhere with their serial number included? At least for an iPod, I wouldn't be surprised if its serial number gets recorded by iTunes somewhere. And iPhoto just might record a camera's as well.


texts: Will my iPhone receive messages after i re-activate it?

texts: My iPhone 4s was deactivated last night by my father because I am grounded. I'm not going to have it for ten days and right now it is powered off and lying on the dining room table and, like I said, deactivated. When I turn it back on and he reactivates it, will I receive the texts sent to me during that time period of deactivation? I have Verizon, if that makes a difference.


texts: What's the 'unique device identifier' (UDID) of a non-iOS device like a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X?

texts:
I wanted to know if the Hardware Serial Number associated with a Macbook Pro is itself treated as a UDID, or is there something else that uniquely identifies the device?

I'll provide a little bit of context that's not completely required but might be useful for those wanting to understand my motivations behind the question, otherwise skip to the last paragraph.

  It's been 21 days since my Macbook Pro [mid-2010] running Mountain
  Lion was stolen. Despite having several software based
  tracking/geo-locating bugs installed on my Disk, it hasn't showed up
  on find my mac or any other service that would have sent me an IP
  if/when my device accessed the internet [assuming it wasn't wiped].
  That really leaves only two options, either my Macbook was never
  [inexplicably] used to access the internet since the theft, or it has
  been used to access the internet after my hard-disk was wiped. Since I
  had no firmware based tracking that would report to me, it seems clear
  that it's no longer inevitable that I shall get some information in
  the future from my device communicating with me directly.

Assuming the worst, either my hard-disk was wiped or completely replaced with a new one. There is one kind of information, that I am currently aware of, that is definitely still communicated to the Apple servers each time a connection is made to the internet. The helpd service or other apple system modules send anonymous information to swscan.apple.com etc. This anonymous information probably contains the device's hardware serial number along with other details like the OS version etc. Am I incorrect to assume this? Is this hardware serial number unique or unchangeable? I remember my entire chipsets being replaced and still having the same serial number. Where exactly physically, is this Serial? Would taking apart the Mac keep the Hardware serial? Or is there something else that Apple devices communicate to their servers to identify themselves?

I am wondering if this is how UDID is logged, then it's in a database somewhere and then I only need to contact the concerned authorities (law enforcement etc.) to obtain this non-personally identifying information and see if my hardware is still around or if it has been sold as metal scrap.

Thanks in advance. Stackexchange is the last place on the Internet that I still have faith in! I look forward to learning more. :)

Macbook Pro Mid-2010
OS X 10.8.2
Original Charger not stolen - [also, apple computers extremely rare so, finding a charger would be difficult]
Last IP connection from my computer made by me to Dropbox sync.

Addendum: Some additional info - I am not in, or from the western world, so non-technical advice about theft-recovery would probably fail to account for the dystopia I am embroiled in. Also, a gentle reminder to not make this a forum for highlighting/preaching good safety practices/appropriate pre-planning or post-theft response. Those stock responses and replies are available elsewhere and I'd hate to get off-topic advice/help. Please refrain from assuming things that I didn't mention explicitly. For example, don't blame the victim, don't assume I don't back-up etc.

Oh, I didn't do a firmware lock, because I didn't want the thief to break and throw away my hardware.

Cheers!


texts: Run an AppleScript that requires keystrokes while the screen is locked?

texts:
I've got a very simple AppleScript whose job it is to type some words into a text box.

tell application "TextEdit"
  activate
end tell
delay 0.2
tell application "System Events"
  keystroke "Hello World!"
  keystroke return
end tell

I want this script to run every time my screen saver activates, and again every time my screen saver deactivates. I installed ScriptSaver and it works perfectly. So far, so good.

Except my screen locks when the screen saver activates. This means that when my script tells TextEdit to activate, the computer pops up its login window and thinks I'm typing "Hello World!" as a password. Not ideal.

I tried making the screen saver require a password after 5 seconds, instead of immediately, but that was no good: the process of activating TextEdit just wakes up the screen again.

Is there a way to activate TextEdit and type words into it in the background, without making my computer think I'm trying to unlock the screen?


texts: Function keystrokes 'ate' by host when running Win7 in a VirtualBox

texts:
I'm a recent Mac convert, but still need to use Windows for work related tasks. A man's gotta eat & pay for internet access.

I have VirtualBox setup w/ a Windows 7 VM. The VM has Visual Studio 2008 installed, along w/ various needed utilities. Everything works great or as expected except for the fact that pressing most of the F keys (F1-F12, excluding F5 & F6) are intercepted by the host OS and processed. I know you can press Command+Fn+F to accomplish this; however, a lot of quick access commands are assigned to the F-keys. (Especially F9-F11 for debugging). These are accessed quite often and the 3 finger combo gets old, fast.

Question:  Is there anyway w/ VirtualBox to, perhaps only in full screen mode, to have the host OS pass those through or otherwise not process them w/o the need for Command+Fn?

I've tried googling but haven't had much success.

TIA


texts: How to do a clean installation of a software in Mac

texts:
I bought a software as a dmg file. It came with a license which was expired on 31st October 2018
So, I bought a newer version of that of that software with a license for the next 12 months.

When I installed that new software and open it. It says that your license is expired.
When I clicked on the license tab. It shows the expiry date which is 31st October 2018

I wanted to know how I can completely remove that software from my system so, that I can re-install the newer version of it and get the upgraded license.

Note: I know how to do it in a Windows machine by removing the registry of that software or using 3rd party software such as uninstaller pro.


texts: How to get Mac OS 10.8 to see Canon MF4370dn Printer drivers

texts:
I just got a MacBook Air and wanted it to use my Canon ImageClass MF4370dn printer. The printer is on my network with a static IP. I've no problem getting MacBook to find the printer either via Bonjour or TCP/IP, but I can't get it to give the duplexing options that are built-in.

My guess is that the drivers I installed are not being picked up by the OS and instead it's using some generic driver. Any suggestions on how to diagnose and fix?

To be clear I'm using the latest Canon Drivers Version 2.4.1 for Mac OS 10.8. The only option that matters at all is having the silly thing duplex. I print up to 1000 pages a month, I need duplexing.

Cheers

Mark Levison


texts: iPhone no message alert sound when near MacBook

texts:
I've noticed that when my phone is near my MacBook, I only receive notifications for Messages on my MacBook. My iPhone remains silent, and the screen does not light up.

Is this an expected behavior (feature not a bug?), and is there a way to ensure that the phone always dings and lights up for message notifications?

Thanks!


texts: I have lots of apps on my iPad and I want to copy them to my PC, usually I'd just click transfer purchased in iTunes but now it's not working. I want to backup and restore my iPad because I've been having some issues. iFunBox isn't working either


texts: "Allow Deletion of Running Applications" Option

texts:
I needed to delete/uninstall an application that was running. It was screen saver app that ran over the regular screen saver, and I hated it. I downloaded it from the App Store, and do not suspect malware. It was just an awful, inexpensive app. When I tried to delete/uninstall it, I got a warning message that said I could not delete a running program. But it also gave me a link to where I could over-ride that, I think, within System Preferences. I clicked a checkbox that would "allow deletion of running applications." After checking that box, I was able to delete the offending application.

I would like to go back to that setting and uncheck "allow deletion of running applications," but I can't find it in any of the System Preferences or other Utilities. A quick internet search revealed nothing. Maybe I'm using the wrong terms?

Is anyone aware of this setting and where it might be located?

Macbook Pro, OSX 10.11.5


texts: What is MacUpdaterSwift in my com.apple.loginitems.plist file?

texts: I saw some strange entries in my Login Items, so I decided to do some digging in the associated com.apple.loginitems.plist file, and found something called MacUpdaterSwift. Google only gave me three search results, and none of them made sense. What is this? Is it maybe malware?


texts: Transfer a large folder of photos and videos to iCloud Photos

texts:
I'd like to sync my Google Photos and iCloud photos, mainly because I use iCloud photos a lot more.
I have a large amount of photos on my Google Photos library that I can download as a ZIP folder. I'm just unsure on the way to store these photos in iCloud?
I've tried the iCloud website to upload said photos and videos and it seems very unstable (only allowing uploads of JPEG format, uploading photos and putting them in the wrong chronilogical order etc.).
I can't think of any other better solution than just to sync said photos and videos directly to my iPhone or just use my MacBook to directly upload them.

It's very annoying. Any Ideas?


texts: Auto Unlock on Mac doesn't work if iPhone is in range

texts: For some odd reason Auto Unlock on my Mac doesn't work unless my iPhone is out of range, in Airplane Mode, or off. I just discovered this because it worked for the first time when my iPhone was rebooting due to an update. Is there anyway to fix this?


texts: Force contacts to sync with iCloud right now

texts: I just updated a contact's phone number in the Mac Contacts app.  Now I want to call them on my iPhone (4S), but my iPhone does not have the new number.  Both the Mac and the iPhone are configured to sync to my iCloud account.  How do I force them to sync now, one after the other, so I can make this call?


texts: Is there a way to transfer a book from an iPad back to iTunes?

texts: I have an eBook that I downloaded and then manually synched to my iPad. I have managed to somehow delete the original file from my laptop, and so I cannot synch the book to my phone to read there. It no longer appears in my library in iTunes either. Is there a way to transfer the book from my iPad back to the iTunes library so that I can synch it to other devices?


texts: How does integration between macOS and iOS work if they are not releases from same year

texts:
I just got a MacBook and it was running OS X Yosemite out of the box. My iPhone is running iOS 10. They don't integrate together very well. Then I updated my MacBook to macOS Sierra. Now they're perfect together!

If I upgrade my iPhone to iOS 12, while running macOS Sierra on my MacBook Pro, will they still work perfectly together?

Does Apple recommend to only use matching OS (macOS and iOS released in parallel in the same year)? (I'm sure they recommend to update to the latest available version but I am not ready for macOS Mojave yet).


texts: Mail.app in OS X — IMAP and Archive Mailbox subfolder creation

texts:
I am using Mail.app with an IMAP .com email address:

For some reason, at 10.9, Mail changed and now the special "Archive" Mailbox doesn't allow for new subfolders to be added within the "Archive".

It isn't possible to add subfolders via a menu or to drag existing folders into the Archive.


texts: How to proceed with iOS set up without Wi-Fi network?

texts:
I have just restored my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 factory settings but it requires a Wi-Fi network although I do not have a wireless access point in or around my house.

Can I not use the iOS 5 without a Wi-Fi connection?


texts: Ipod touch 5 stuck on voice over when restarted

texts: I recently reset my ipod touch 5 and left it for the next day. When I turned it on the next day it somehow got on voice over mode and I can't swipe the screen without it speaking. What do I do?


texts: How to programatically set Terminal theme/profile

texts:
Context for this question:
I'm writing a bash script to automatically setup any Mac with my tools/preferences, ideally with one command if possible.

The question:
I have a .terminal theme file that i use and i'd like for the script to be able to set it as the default terminal profile without having to do it through the GUI after running my script, is there a command for this?


texts: Do non-retina graphics looks worse on a retina display than they did before?

texts:
There are complaints that non-retina apps look terrible compared to retina apps on a retina iPad.

Is this purely in comparison with high-resolution apps, or does it actually look worse than it did on an iPad without the retina display, i.e. do four pixels forming one big virtual pixel on a retina display look worse than one big pixel of the exact same size on the old display?


texts: With macOS Sierra installed on a Mac from at least 2013 and an Apple Watch (the very first one), users should be able to unlock their Mac with their Apple Watch. I have an Early 2013 MacBook Pro and an Apple Watch, both of which have the most updated version of the OS installed. I followed these instructions to get it to work (checked 2 factor authentication is on, I have a password on my Watch), but I do not see the option to use my Watch to unlock under System Preferences. Any ides on why it does not work? Could it have something to do with me having 2 Apple IDs, one for iTunes and one for iCloud? Could it be my Mac is somehow not ready for this feature (although it is from 2013)?


texts:
Recently my Mac has been exhibiting two strange behaviours:

Preferences for Safari and Windowshade return to their defaults on their own every few days.
On occasions, when I select shut down, the computer does a reboot instead.

What can cause these?

Mac Pro 2012, 6 cores 3.33 Ghz
OS X 10.6.8 (no intentions to move to Mavericks)
OS X on SSD, user folder on HDD


texts: Upgrade the hdd in the new mid 2011 iMac without buying an Apple certified hdd?

texts: It has been recently discovered that Apple uses a new 7 pin hdd connection in their mid 2011 iMacs. When a none Apple certified hdd is installed the fans kick on during boot and system fails to start. Is a way to override the check for an Apple certified hdd either through a software(ktext?) or hardware(jump pins) modification?