texts: iMac 2019 fans rather loud (and at 2850rpm) when only 30% CPU - is this normal?

texts:
Situation:
new iMac
model retina 21.5-inch 2019, 3.2GhZ 6-core intel Core i7

I can not hear fans at all during normal non-cpu intensive operation (web browsing, etc.). They are at 1200 rpm. This is good.

However, when I load the CPU to an average of only 34% (by spinning up 4 yes commands, as described here), the fans already become rather loud and stabilise at 2850 rpm.

I consider 34% not very loaded. While the sound type of the fan doesn't sound abnormal (no ticking, or so) the sound level does sound unexpectedly high to me.  Loud being: an other person in the otherwise quiet living room asking 'what's going on?' when he hears it the first time, or almost approaching the sound level of a (generic brand) laptop with full fan speed, almost similar to a (soft) hair dryer.

Question: Is this as expected for these iMacs?

Note:

I already performed the reset-SMC-procedure as suggested at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202179
To be honest, it is the sort of sound level I sort of perhaps could expect when CPU would operate at 100% for some time, but not for anything lower than 75%.
I do have 20+ years experience with several non-Apple laptop brands, 1st gen macbook, and a mid-2008 iMac. By which I mean: computers and the related noise levels are not new to me.
reporting from macOS Activity Monitor seems to be consistent with what the menu bar app (iStat Menus) shows. See second screenshot. (cfr comment)


texts: Is there an application for boosting the bass levels of all system audio?

texts:
Is there any application to boost the bass levels in all audio output?

I started searching for it because I have a HTC Wildfire phone and loaded Cyanogenmod onto it. In that I have got an application named "DSP Manager" which can dramatically increase bass levels.

I thought it would be very nice if I could get something similar for my MacBook Pro.


texts: I upgraded to High Sierra and now the "View as Icon" option in Mail is no longer there. Is there a workaround?  How do we get this problem fixed?


texts: Alternatives to APFS which keeps corrupting itself?

texts:
Macos mojave locked up, forcing me to reboot. I was then presented with the prohibitory symbol indicating that the OS can no longer load. It was caused by APFS being corrupted, confirmed by disk utility in recovery mode. Disk utility did nothing to repair the problem.

I reinstalled the OS and restored everything from a backup. One day later macos locked up again, and I once again had to reboot. It now stops booting after filling the progress bar while loading the OS. APFS has once again managed to corrupt itself, evident both when staring in verbose mode and when running disk utility in recovery mode. A checksum for some object is invalid. Disk utility once again makes no attempt to actually fix anything and I have found no evidence of any other APFS tools from apple for this purpose.

I'm not resizing partitions or anything advanced when it happens, just using Firefox and getting a beach ball.

I can't think of any other solution to the situation other than to get rid of APFS:

Reinstalling the OS onto an HFS+ partition. I tried this -- the installer ignores the existing file system and created APFS anyway.
Install an older version of the OS on HFS+
Use some hack to force mojave onto HFS+
Use a different OS

The SSD is a 500 GB, less than a year old Samsung 860 EVO that boots Windows 10 with seemingly no problems so the hardware does not seem to be the problem.

Are there any other obvious options that I have missed in my list? (buying new hardware because the file system is useless doesn't qualify)


texts: How to make Smart folder like physical folder with the combined contents of two folders

texts:
I have an application which looks for its data (*.txt) files in a folder. I have two folders containing text data that I need to keep separate, but it would be useful to have the application see the text data files as residing in one folder (containing the two sets of files).

I can create a script that maintains symbolic links to the files in the two folders in a third combined folder.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'd like to use a proven solution if possible.

The solution would have to deal with the case of file name clashes in a sensible way.


texts: Photostream screensaver on apple tv3 and ios 10.x?

texts:
I have always had whatever photos I take with my iphone, automagically in my photostream, and those then making up the screensaver of my apple tv 3. I guess with whatever is different with apple photos/photostream now, this connection doesn't work any longer.

Any suggestions?

The iphone and apple tv are signed in to the same icloud account.


texts: Can these 10 steps for creating a podcast episode be automated?

texts:
This is my first time trying to put together a recording of something which will become a podcast, and it seems like I have 10 "post processing" steps which I am currently doing manually.

It's entirely possible (in fact, it's likely) that I'm doing this in a way which is much harder than it has to be, but I don't know how to automate and/or simplify it. I'm hoping others who know more about this process might chime in and tell me how to make it simpler.

I'm starting with an AIFF file which has to be edited (cutting off time at the beginning and ending). This strikes me as the only step which can't be automated.

Edit AIFF in Fission to just contain the recording
Export as AIFF
Open Intro (a pre-recording mp4), Outro (same), and new recording (AIFF) in QuickTime7
Create new document in QuickTime7, and then Copy/Paste: 1) the Intro, 2) the new recording, and 3) the Outro.
Export AIFF from QuickTime7
Open AIFF in Levelator
Import leveled AIFF in iTunes
Export leveled AIFF to MP3 (iTunes) at a certain bitrate
List item
Add tags to MP3 (iTunes) checking to make sure I'm using same tags I used in previous episodes in all required fields except for the episode title which is different.

It seems like steps 2-10 should be something I can automate, even the tagging, except for the episode title, which I can manually add before I upload it to the server.

So how can I automate this, or otherwise make it easier / less error-prone?


texts: Super quiet audio recording in Quicktime 10.4 using Soundflower-2 on Yosemite

texts:
Now that the Soundflowerbed app is retired, I haven't been able to record my Mac's system audio :(
Following the instructions from mattingalls' Soundflower-2 installation guide, (https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower/releases/tag/2.0b2), I rebooted, and then created a Multi-Output Device in Audio MIDI Setup, to be able to listen to the audio through the built-in speakers along with sending it through Soundflower 2CH,  But I'm getting a super low audio volume when I try to record through Quicktime 10.4. Even with the volume cranked, there's very little sound in the Quicktime recording, and yes, I did make sure to adjust the volume before switching to the Multi-Output Device in Sys. Prefs.

Here's my setup:

I'm working on a mid-2012 MacBook Pro Retina, still running Yosemite (oooold, I kno, but I can't update just yet- some of the software I need to use isn't compatible with the latest OS)

Any advice or link to a free Soundflower alternative would be greatly appreciated :)


texts: How can I select paragraphs easier in iOS 7?

texts:
Selecting text has become very clunky in iOS 7, whereas it was very smooth in previous operating systems. In particular, in iOS 6, three taps of some text would select the whole paragraph. This appears to have stopped working in iOS 7.

Is there a way to select a whole paragraph by tapping the screen in iOS 7?


texts: How can I initiate a Google Voice phone call from the command line?

texts:
Thanks to Brett Terpstra I can easily send an SMS through Google Voice in Terminal, but now I want to be able to initiate a phone call via Termainal too.

There is no Google Voice API (yet?) so I know there is no official way to do it, but I'm hoping that perhaps someone else has had this same issue and already found a solution.

A proper solution would have to not only let me say which number I want to call, but also which number Google Voice should use to call me.

(For those unfamiliar with Google Voice, calls are initiated by your phone receiving an incoming call from Google's servers, and then you are connected to the number that you wanted to call.)

I took a look on Github, but the only potential solution I found was https://github.com/tylerhall/google-voice-dialer which hasn't been updated in 2 years, and I'm not sure how to use it.


texts: If I created a service using Automator, how can I delete it if I no longer want it?


texts: A few weeks ago I had a problem with the § and < keys being "mixed up in software" on my external Windows keyboard, (the keys are in the right locations physically). I thought the 10.15.2 update resolved it, but now alt+2 on the internal keyboard produces ™ but it should produce @. It used to work fine, problem started some weeks ago, perhaps coinciding with me using the windows keyboard more often... Macbook pro mid 2014 retina, 13 inch.


texts: How can I do shift + slash on a French AZERTY keyboard?

texts:
I have a MacBook with a French AZERTY keyboard.
On this keyboard, the forward slash ('/') is over the ':' character, so I have to do: Shift + : to get the /.

However in Eclipse there is a useful shortcut to comment out blocks of code: you do ⌘ + / to put "//" at the beginning of every line of selected code; and Shift + ⌘ + / to put /* and */ at the beginning and the end of selected lines, thus commenting out the block of code.

But as I already need to press Shift to get the /, when I do Shift + ⌘ + :, it understands ⌘ + /, and I get the first shortcut.

I can't seem to get the second shortcut. I even tried Shift + Shift + ⌘ + :, using both Shift keys on my keyboard, and of course it didn't work.

I worked around that by changing Eclipse shortcuts, but I was curious to know if there is a way to achieve that (reaching Shift + /).

I hope you clearly understand this is a matter of the highest importance...


texts: MacBook Pro battery drains quickly, shows Service Battery when restarted

texts:
The new battery is an A1175 on a MacBook Pro (2008). The specs are that this battery should hold a capacity of 5600 mAh.
OSX Lion System Information reports:

Full Charge Capacity: 4936 mAh
Manufacturer: Sony
Cycle Count: 6
Condition: Normal

When fully charged/overnight, the OS will report that the battery is ~97% full. If it's taken off AC power, the OS will report ~4:00 time remaining. The system will sit idle for maybe 2 hours, and will turn off due to battery drain around 90 minutes. It can't be powered back on until AC is used.
On restart, Lion will show the battery's status with the warning "Service Battery". The battery has ~8% remaining. System Info also shows "Service Battery", and the Full Charge Capacity is 2680 mAh.
Is this normal behaviour for a MacBook Pro with an A1175?
My theory is that this is a defective battery. I'm suspicious of the Sony attribute on the System Info as well.


texts: Hard Drive: I can see it in /Volumes, but it does not show up in Finder

texts:
I'm connecting my external Hard Drive on my Mac. It's a NTFS drive. It used to show up normally on Finder's sidebar and Desktop as well, but it doesn't anymore.

But it does show up in /Volumes folder. I can see all the folder and go through.

So, here what I tried:

1) diskutil list lists my external drive:

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:               Windows_NTFS LUCAS                   1.0 TB     disk2s1

2) GetFileInfo /Volumes/LUCAS does not have the capital letter V (means it's not invisible).

3) Whenever I connect the HD, it gives me two weird messages on console:

  mds[62]: (Volume.Normal:166) vsd:0x7fe0b30a2200 DisabledStore recycle:6
  context:{
     DisabledRecycleCount = 6;
  }

and

  mds[62]: (Volume.Error:577) vsd:0x7fe0b397d000 Open failed.  failureCount:6 {
     DisabledRecycleCount = 6;
  }

4) Yep, I also tried the chflags nohidden /Volumes/LUCAS. No luck.

So, what can I do? I can browse the drive, but it just doesn't mount. That's all.


texts:
I am currently considering buying an iMac 27" to replace my PC, and also to have at the centre of my home cinema/media system.

The iMac would be used to play DVDs, stream video, play CDs, MP3s etc.

I want to send both the video and audio to a Home Cinema Reciever, ideally all through an HDMI cable (avoiding a separate cable for the audio), connected to the iMac via a MDP to HDMI converter.  The video is then relayed on to my projector by HDMI from the Home Cinema Reciever.

I have a few questions that aren't clearly answered by the Apple specs:

Will DTS/Dolby audio be sent via the Thunderbolt/MDP port to the Home Cinema Reciever through the HDMI cable?  Apple say audio is sent, but that could just mean stereo!
I read somewhere that for HDMI with Audio it was necessary to mirror the display.  The iMac will be visible from the seating for viewing the projected image.  I will want to blank the iMac screen and just use the projector when watching movies etc.  I don't want to see a smaller version of what is projected!
Will I be able to output audio to the Home Cinema Reciever when playing MP3s etc through iTunes or another media player?


texts: Does Find My Mac work if the disk gets erased?

texts: My MacBook Pro was stolen a couple of days ago and Find my Mac had been enabled on it. I have already locked the Mac with a passcode and a message as well as clicked on the play sound feature(on the find my iPhone app), but those actions are pending until the computer comes online. The Mac is on El Capitan and came with Mavericks. The admin user is password protected but I had not enabled FileVault which is the disk encryption feature, so the computer can be wiped by erasing the disk in Recovery. The computer doesn't need to connect to the internet to be erased but it does need an internet connection to reinstall the operating system after the wipe. My question is, if the computer is erased and then goes online, will Find my Mac still work and notify me when it does? Is it still asociated with my Apple ID after the wipe?


texts:
I was working through these instructions to get my web server working again and needed to change the /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file.

I needed to change the permission on httpd.conf file and did. Next I attempted to edit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf. I could not because I didn't have permission to change things in the /etc/apache2 directory. So I tried a chmod 666 on the /etc/apache2 directory.  Now I cannot see any contents in finder in the /etc/apache2/ directory. The permissions I can see on the directory are: drw-rw-rw-. In Finder it shows as a custom permissions.

I need to change the permissions on /etc/apache2 but to what?


texts: Can I take the optical drive out of my MacBook Pro?

texts:
I'm proud to say that I'm the happy owner of an almost antique 2009 MacBook Pro. I've had this 15-inch MacBook Pro for quite a while now and I'm not planning on changing it (have you seen the price of MacBooks these days?). As it is quite old now, it is not really working as well as before and my optical drive doesn't work anymore. It does not recognise any CD and keeps burping them out. It doesn't really matter as I've gotten used to it and don't use the optical drive now.

So here is my question:

Can I safely take the optical drive out and not replace it with another one?

I know it is possible to take it out and put an SSD in instead but what about just taking in out? And leave and empty space? What about the cables? Can they just hang in there and not be attached to anything?

I'm just thinking it could lighten up my already quite heavy laptop.


texts: Mojave 10.14 Mouse Hover Suddenly Not Working

texts:
Today the mouse hovering functionality on my Mac simply stopped working. Moving my mouse to the dock causes one icon to enlarge, but then sliding left and right does not cause the others to enlarge.

In menus I can click on a menu, but then the menu items don't light up as I pull down.  I can click on a submenu to see it but I don't see it on hover.

This behavior happens with both my Logitech mouse and my Apple Trackpad.

This behavior came out of nowhere, I restarted my Mac but it did not help.


texts: How to safely and successfully use Bootcamp?

texts:
I am currently running Parallels 7 to use windows applications, however, games do not run efficiently and I heard Bootcamp is better for gaming.

I tried installing bootcamp but soon enough I ran into a problem where the laptop did not turn on as usual (took a few tries before opening the log in page). Hence I quickly deleted it and got parallels instead. That was long ago, and now I want to switch back to bootcamp to play some games.

However, I do not know what things I should look for to successfully install bootcamp.

My rMBP has the following specifications, how much shall I give bootcamp ? or is it decided on it's own ?

2.6 Ghz i7
16GB DDR3 RAM
OS X 10.8.2
GT 650M 1024MB

Plus, how do I ensure that I do not run into problems when using Bootcamp ? Is Bootcamp worth it ? What problems might I face when using Bootcamp ?


texts:
Is there a special app needed on my iPhone XR for the video camera to sync an external microphone?

I have all the TRS/Lightning connections correct, but no voice is recording with the video.


texts: MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) not recoginizing keyboard and trackpad

texts:
My girlfriend has a 13-inch Mid 2013 MacBook Air, OS X 10.9.5. Yesterday, the keyboard and the trackpad stopped working. I connected a USB keyboard which works.

I believe it's a software problem because:

The Power key still works (all the time)
I can boot up in verbose mode (press Command + V while booting)
I can do an SMC reset (Shift + Control + Option + Power Up)
I can do a PRAM reset (Option + Command + P + R + Power Up)

All these things seem to work with the built-in keyboard, but as soon as the login window appears, the keyboard does not work anymore (except the power button).

Are there any more things I could try?
Thanks for your suggestions!

Edit:
I just checked the system.log (why didn't I do that earlier?) and the log is FILLED (like 100 messages per second) with these entries:

kernel[0]: Error: AppleHSSPIController::InterruptOccurred Failed to transfer interrupt data with Err (0xe00002eb)
kernel[0]: Error: AppleHSSPIController::doSPITransfer NAK received from device
kernel[0]: Error: AppleHSSPIController::doSPITransfer CRC from device was invalid: computed 0xC03B, received 0x9F7D


texts: Internal keyboard and trackpad quit working, mac not booting up properly

texts:
TL;DR I have an early 2015 Macbook Pro (stock features), running Yosemite (not sure of the version). I've tried SMC and PRAM resets, taking the battery out, and external mouse and keyboard with limited success.

A few months ago, the internal keyboard and trackpad would work intermittently, but after a week or so, they quit working altogether. The power button still works. Though, I'm now experiencing issues with the computer's bootup. Sometimes when I boot it up, it shows the Apple logo and then quits. This didn't happen before. And before I get into it, the internal keyboard and trackpad don't work during bootup either. I can't use them to boot into safe mode or reset the PRAM or SMC. I need an external keyboard for that.

I was traveling in Southeast Asia at the time with no Apple store within a few thousand miles, so I didn't go see anyone about it. I read forum after forum, and asked questions. I was told (and convinced) by several people that the problem was a swollen battery. In Malaysia, I took the bottom off of my computer, which seemed to make it a little more stable. It created more room in the computer body, and lent credibility to the swollen battery idea. In Asia, I just couldn't get what I needed to take the battery out and try it. I went to an internet cafe in Indonesia and borrowed a mouse and keyboard. I was hoping to install a driver to use my iPhone as a new wireless mouse and keyboard. My experience was less than stellar. The computer was super jumpy. The mouse and keyboard barely worked. I'm not sure if it was the computer's fault or the cheap equipment at the cafe. Restarting the computer didn't seem to do anything.

Fast forward to London, I was at my mother-in-law's house. She had the security I needed to work on my computer as well as an external mouse and keyboard. They worked great! The computer was not jumpy like it was in Indonesia. I took the battery out (please don't give me flack about how my battery is non-removable, I know what I'm doing). To my surprise, the internal keyboard and trackpad still didn't work.

I'm back in Berlin where I now could go to an Apple store, but I'm also in the best place to work on it myself, and I'd like to take one last stab at it before I pay some extortionate fee to have it fixed. Does anyone have any ideas, that don't have to do with the battery, of why this could happen to a pretty new computer?


texts: Installing Tiger on an iBook G4 A1134 running Leopard

texts: I have recently acquired an iBook G4 to run a specific software for research. The iBook currently has Leopard installed but the software I want to run doesn't work since the iBook doesn't have the classic environment. Because of this, I'm trying to downgrade to Tiger or Panther but I don't have installation disks. I have been trying to follow the USB stick methods but these aren't working. The iBook doesn't show the USB when you boot holding the option key. I'm not sure if this means there is some problem with the disk image I'm using. I have tried .dmg and .iso. Is there some recommended place to download the disk images? Is it even possible to install these older systems using this method?


texts:
When using File Vault on El Capitan, is there any way to disable the Auto Login, so when you start up it loads straight away without needing a password.

If not, then is possible to set it so when you enter a password it goes straight to the desktop and skips the loading bar. (i.e. so it preloads before the password is entered)

I understand why a password is needed, but it is overkill for my situation.

I'm guessing the answer is probably "no", but I thought there might be a terminal command or some other trick.


texts:
So far I can only delete pictures from iPhoto.

How can I delete a picture from my Photos app on iPad?


texts:
I cannot install matlab 2011a student on yosemite. I click on the OSX installer, a matlab screen pops up then goes away.

Has anyone install 2011a on OSX Yosemite ?


texts:
A couple of days ago, my Snow Leopard Mac Mini started to crash an average of once every 12 or so hours. Symptoms include the display being frozen (no changes in response to any keyboard or mouse input), and being completely unresponsive to network connections (ssh etc.; I've turned off the firewall on a NATted network).

What are the logs/diagnostics I should be looking at to figure out why it's crashing?


texts: In very much need of resetting admin password for MacOS Sierra.  Unfortunately the previous instructions for the Mac OS X does NOT work for my Macbook Air.  Please help!


texts:
I've gotten an new iPad with 4G (yay!) and I've set up the VPN connection to connect to a VPN which I'd like to use to connect to my computer. However, I've noticed that my once VPN is on, my iPad doesn't do much except show an indicator in the status bar.

Is it possible for me to connect to my iMac which is behind a firewall via VPN? Do I need an app to see my screen, or is there something which supports it on iOS "out of the box"?


texts: Can I turn off the screen with a keyboard shortcut?

texts:
One of the first customizations I make in Windows is to install WinBubble, an awesome piece of software that lets me add an option the the right-click menu of the desktop: 'Turn Off Monitor.' It's really quite awesome.

Now that I'm using Macs more and more, I want to know how to do this on a Mac. But instead of using the mouse (yes, I'm a keyboard guy), I want to use the keyboard.

Is it possible for me to turn off the screen with a keyboard shortcut? I'm thinking AppleScript - but something simpler is definitely better.


texts: Insert date via text expansion / shortcut key

texts:
I've been using aText which is a small text expansion app for this - it's become pretty ropey on new OSX versions so I've given up. I've also been using the trial of the new TextExpander which is great, though it's billed monthly now and seems like overkill considering all I want to do is insert a date! My requirement is: if I type a short string like 'dd' or use a certain keyboard shortcut combination, I should have today's date output like so:

[ Jul 8 ]

I've fiddled with apple scripts etc to try and get this working, but no luck. Surely there's something out there that I've missed. Or a better Applescript that actually works :)


texts: Time Machine - List of Files that were backed up

texts: I'd like to know to see which files are getting backed up by my time machine? I often see a large amount of data being transfered and I'm not sure sure what it is.


texts:
For some reason, starting yesterday, Safari will not show ANY style sheets for any webpage I visit.  I updated today to Safari 5.0.5 thinking that might help, but it didn't.

I restarted, and that didn't help either.  Here's an example of what it looks like:

I am not running extensions or any custom style sheets.  I did notice something odd with the extensions section of the safari preferences:

Any ideas / suggestions?


texts:
I just received my new iMac, with Moutain Lion and iLife 11 preinstalled.

I also own an older Mac, for which I bought a few years ago Snow Leopard and iLife 09.

Now, I want to get rid of iPhoto 11 and reinstall my good old iPhoto 9 as I like it much better.

I tried to reinstall it with the iLife'09 DVD I have, but the installer doesn't let me install iPhoto (and iMovie), but would let me install iWeb.

Is there a workaround so that I can use iPhoto 09 on my new iMac ?


texts: Displaying 'note keys/labels' on Garageband for iOS (specifically iPad)

texts:
I'm wondering if there is a way to display all the 'note letters' on the keys in the Keyboard on GarageBand for iOS.

At the moment it only displays the 'C notes' - for example C2, C3 and C4.

I have no 'music-based technical knowledge' or expertise and would appreciate any help in being able to see all the notes displayed.

Thanks for your help!


texts:
My wife has a Dropbox she uses to exchange files (mainly pictures) with a friend, but needs to send files to a printer who uses Dropbox.

How can she create a Folder to privately share only with the printer?


texts: iTunes asking for password for wrong iTunes account

texts: I purchased a new phone at Sam's club and they transferred the data from my old iPhone to my new iPhone. But now more and more apps will not update with out the password for an iTunes account that I don't know who's is. Even apps that I have downloaded since that data transfer have this problem. I have tried rebooting my iPhone, logging in and out of iTunes, and deleting and reinstalling the app but nothing works.


texts: How can I install OS X Lion on a new HDD?

texts:
I need OS X Lion on a new HDD that I am preparing to install in a MacBook.

Since I don't have an existing disk to boot up and Apple isn't selling flash drives with it (or are they?), how do I use it for booting?

Something to keep in mind: I may ultimately be restoring a partition with a Time Machine backup, but I need to boot in OS X first to get to Disk Utility or the Time Machine restoration interface.


texts: Dtrace script newproc.d stopped working after upgrade, because of missing proc:::exec-success probe

texts:
I'm trying to run:

$ sudo /usr/bin/newproc.d

which suppose to snoop new processes as they are executed, but it fails with the error:

  dtrace: failed to compile script /usr/bin/newproc.d: line 22: probe description proc:::exec-success does not match any probes

This is on OS X 10.11.2 and as far as I remember, this was working before the upgrade.

It seems new OS X doesn't have anymore proc:::exec-success probe as I've checked by:

$ sudo dtrace -l | grep proc:::exec-success

Failing code of that script (note: this was provided by the system, I haven't changed it):

proc:::exec-success
{
  print_pid[pid] = 1; /* This pid emerged from an exec, make a note of that. */
}

Is that probe was removed or renamed to different probe? Maybe I could activate it somehow? Otherwise what I can use instead?


texts: I was able to erase FileVault encrypted drive

texts:
My Mac mini was running Sierra. It had FileVault enabled. I read that you shouldn't be able to erase a FileVault encrypted drive. I logged into Recovery and I was able to erase the drive.

The next step I did was "Restore" and now I see a OSX Base System partition created. So, I thought heck, macOS would be installed and I restarted but I led me to Recovery Menu again, so I went to the reinstall macOS. But, when I select the hard drive, it shows the "This disk is locked".

So, I read that if you go to file menu in Disk Utility there should be an unlock option, but I don't see any.

Further in Disk Utility, it shows that the OS X Base System has consumed all the space.

I obviously know the password, how do I recover from this?


texts:
I'm running a Windows Virtual Machine (VMWare) through an external hard drive, however, when I boot it, I gets the error, Winload.efi is corrupted or missing but it says I need to press F8 to change some settings for it to work.

The issue here is, I use a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar and the Touch Bar isn't showing because there's no need when starting up the Windows VM.

I need to press F8 otherwise I can't repair the VM. Any ideas?


texts: Today I was checking if there are any updates on Mac App Store and look what type of message came out. What do I need to do ?


texts: WiFi or Bluetooth (or USB) for iPad Tethering

texts:
How do the three tethering options for the iPad compare in the following areas:

Range
Security
Speed
Power usage (both laptop and iPad)

I'm mainly looking for the difference between WiFi and Bluetooth, as USB is pretty obvious except for the speed category.


texts: GCC 4.7 (via brew) keeps including from "/usr/include/c++/4.2.1"

texts:
This one is driving me crazy:

I need to use lot of stuff which simply does not compile with the standard clang/llvm compilers which come with Xcode 5 (on Mac OS X 10.8), so I decided to install gcc47 via brew.

Everything went fine but when I try to compile things, I get several error messages and I discovered that some includes are still coming from "/usr/include/c++/4.2.1", which is really weird.

Can anyone explain me how to set it up in a clean way?

These are the step I was doing:

brew update
brew install gcc47
alias gcc='gcc-4.7'

brew warned me that I have to set up LDFLAGS and CPPFLAGS, quoting (summarised):

  This formulas are keg-only: so they were not symlinked into /usr/local.

    Conflicts with gmp, mpfr, libmpc, ppl in main repository.

    Generally there are no consequences of this for you. If you build your
    own software and it requires these formulas, you'll need to add to your
    build variables:
        LDFLAGS:  -L/usr/local/opt/gmp4/lib
        CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/gmp4/include

        LDFLAGS:  -L/usr/local/opt/mpfr2/lib
        CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/mpfr2/include

        LDFLAGS:  -L/usr/local/opt/libmpc08/lib
        CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/libmpc08/include

        LDFLAGS:  -L/usr/local/opt/ppl011/lib
        CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/ppl011/include

        LDFLAGS:  -L/usr/local/opt/cloog-ppl015/lib
        CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/cloog-ppl015/include

So exporting LDFLAGS and CPPFLAGS via

        export LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS} -L/usr/local/opt/gmp4/lib -L/usr/local/opt/mpfr2/lib -L/usr/local/opt/libmpc08/lib -L/usr/local/opt/ppl011/lib -L/usr/local/opt/cloog-ppl015/lib"

        export CPPFLAGS="${CPPFLAGS} -I/usr/local/opt/gmp4/include -I/usr/local/opt/mpfr2/include -I/usr/local/opt/libmpc08/include -I/usr/local/opt/ppl011/include -I/usr/local/opt/cloog-ppl015/include"

should do the trick (I thought).

But it doesn't. I keep getting messages like:

  /usr/include/c++/4.2.1/bits/stl_vector.h:600:7: note: must qualify
  identifier to find this declaration in dependent base class
        push_back(const value_type& __x)
        ^

and I simply don't understand why?


texts:
I want to use the newer time capsule as my wifi.  I need the second time capsule because I don't have enough wired ports.
How can I connect the two of them?  I don't need the wifi on the second one.  Which one do I plug into the cable modem and how do I physically connect the second one as in do I plug it into the first one that has the wan cable plugged into it?  How do I configure them both? Thank you.


texts: Terminal command to delete all images in folder and subfolders?

texts:
I need a terminal command to delete all images (*.jpg, *.png, *.gif, *.JPG, *.PNG, *.GIF) stored in myfolder and its subfolders, preserving the folders structure. I do not need to move them to trash folder.

I guess that some regular expressions are needed, but this overcomes my skills.


texts: iOS: Is there a limit in the number of applications I can leave "running background" in the bar?

texts: I know applications don't actually run in background but I was wondering how many applications I can leave open. Has anybody tried? Is there a limit? What is it? If you reach a limit, it starts closing applications by itself to make room for new ones?


texts: How to edit Yosemite Bootloader, startup manager?

texts:
I have been searching and trying to correct my mid 2011 MacBook Air screen when you startup by holding the option key. My Bootcamp no longer shows but the created USB Windows 10 install stick does even though it is not connected.

I have Yosemite, latest version, and Parallels 10, latest version. I have imported my Bootcamp as VM and it works perfectly in Parallels and it used to work as a startup OS.

Since I usually use Parallels to access my Windows install I am not sure when it quit working.

The Windows install stick has been living on the option start screen since my son made it and we used it to install Windows 10 back in August.

Another recent find was my recovery partition, which showed, but failed to boot. I was able to access Internet Recovery but it only wanted to install Lion, strange. I managed to fix that by target disc mode with my MacBook Pro and reinstalling Yosemite, but still have the Bootcamp issue and the USB stick "ghost."


texts:
I've been running the Beta for El Capitan for a while now, but since the OS got officially released today, I feel it's okay to ask a question.

  FYI: I'm running the GM.

I have an iMac with a Bose Companion 5 connected through USB. It's recognised perfectly fine, but once in a while, it just seems to stop sending audio over USB and just starts playing on the internal speakers.

This never really happens in the middle of a song or video, it seems to happen between songs/videos, when the iMac doesn't output sound for a while. This can sometimes mean that one Youtube-video plays over the USB-speakers, while the next, which gets started 2 seconds after the previous one, plays over the internal speakers.

OSX still recognises the speakers (shows them in system settings under sound) when it stops sending audio, but it simply won't play. When it suddenly starts playing on the internal speakers, changing volume doesn't work, because the USB-speakers are still selected in system settings. I have to change to Internal Speakers before I can change the volume. If I then wait a little bit and change back to Bose USB Audio, the external speakers work without trouble, until it decides to do the above all over again.

Anyone has a fix for this problem? I have of course reported it to Apple while testing the beta, but I guess they haven't picked it up.


texts: How can I use an iPhone on the TracFone network?

texts: I am looking to buy a used iPhone for use on the TracFone network. I am pretty sure that it will run on the network. According to eHow, I can do it with a jailbreak and according to another eHow article, AT&T phones work. Can someone point me in the right direction? Which version of the iPhone (AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint) do I need? How do I get it on the TracFone network?


texts: Is 65 celsius temperature on a MacBook Pro 2017 okay?

texts: My 2017 MacBook Pro 15" gets really hot when it's connected to an external monitor. The temperature reaches 65 Celcius, and I am wondering if this is considered an okay temperature? If it is not what is the solution for such a problem?


texts: How to access a fusion drive from ubuntu linux by mounting apple core storage

texts:
my iMac with 3TB fusion drive won't boot anymore. even when booting to recovery it crashes with kernel panic. the stack trace says

com.apple.driver.Corestorage
 dependency com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily

the mac also won't start from recovery mode because kernel panic occurs. I hoped I could fix the file system from the recovery mode.

As it happens my backup is not up to date so I thought I start a linux live system and try to mount the device or even fix the file system. or in the worst case just recover some files.

Fdisk tells me:

I have no success following this https://superuser.com/questions/961401/mounting-hfs-partition-on-arch-linux/1088110#1088110 tutorial also I have tried hfsexplorer. While I can access /dev/sda3 and /dev/sdb3 I have no success with /dev/sdb2 or /dev/sda2. it tells me that the type is unknown. also listing the partitions with gparted tells me the file system type is unknown.

I assume that the disk has no hardware issue. According to smartctl I get:

so how can I go on from here? Is it safe to say the file system is broke? Can I fix it? can I somehow mount this Apple Core Storage system?


texts: Use shortcuts with key strokes on secondary level

texts:
Sometimes I see pre-defined shortcuts in macOS where one part of them are using the second level of keys, e.g. stroke "/" of the key 7. As everybody knows, at least this secondary level can be accessed by the shift key.

Well, coming from this pattern, I was a bit confused about such kind of pre-defined shortcuts: command+option+/. My initial assumption to utilize these kind of shortcut was to use modifiers like this command+option+shift+7, which wasn't working well unfortunately.

My assumption is that I have a fundamental misunderstanding in using secondary key strokes in shortcuts. Can you help me out with this?


texts: Mac Mini: No sound except for startup chime

texts:
I have a Mac Mini (mid 2010) and out of nowhere the sound has completely stopped working, the only exception to this is the startup chime when turning on the machine.

I have already checked to see if I just muted the sound, that the internal speakers are selected in system preferences, reset the PRAM, restarted the computer, and wiggled a jack inside of the headphone jack hole.

I have no idea what is going on with the sound! I know the speakers are not broken because the startup chime works, also I've tried using external speakers but those don't solve anything either.

Any thoughts?


texts: Move macos user home folders on external drive

texts:
I got a shiny new Mac Mini but couldn't afford a 1TB internal SSD to hold all my stuff, so I'm testing ways to leverage an external disk for user storage. I know I can point Photos and iTunes to libraries on the external drive, but I'm more interested in transparently locating the entire home folder on the external drive. Thru trial and error, might have landed on a winner: setting the external drive's mount point to /Users/ . Is this a feasible approach? I couldn't find any stories of others attempting this, which could suggest that it's a terrible idea; or maybe it's just not a common solution. Laying out my process:

Formatted external drive to match Mac mini SSD, with APFS and permissions enabled
Started by moving bulk documents from iMac to external drive, to reduce size of folders for migration
Created new Administrator account on Mac mini before migrating existing users
Migrated user accounts from iMac to Mac mini (internal SSD, no option to select other location in Migration Assistant)
First, just copied home folder to external drive and pointed user account to it; this resulted in major permissions errors and iCloud connection issues
Tried manually resetting home folder permissions via finder, via recovery mode, via diskutil ResetUserPermissions; seemed to resolve some but not all errors
Re-migrated and used finder's “exact copy” to maintain permissions; again, not a full fix
Ultimately, left migrated user folder in place on internal SSD; no issues with migrated user accounts when left in place
Re-migrated all users from iMac and left in place on internal SSD; delete failed migration home folders
Ensure external drive always auto-mounts at boot, test across logouts, reboots, cold boots and different users:

https://superuser.com/questions/360276/automount-external-hard-drive-on-mac
How does Mac OS X decide which volumes to mount? One of my disks doesn't mount at boot

Test setting mount point of external drive to a different location on the root drive filesystem

Permanently change mount point of volume?
choose a non-critical mount point first, try mounting to a location that already exists - no issues, mounting "replaces" the mount point folder with the drive; has the drive name in Finder but the mount point folder's name in Terminal
try mounting to a location that already has data - the existing data becomes inaccessible as the mount point "obscures" the data with the drive's filesystem, but unmounting the drive reveals the data is still there
try mounting to a location that already has data by same name - no issues, ditto

NEXT STEPS (a little bit scared to try)

“exact copy” /Users to the external drive
try mounting the drive to /Users
reboot, cold boot, different user logins - any issues?
Try logging in with the drive detached — what happens? should fall back to the "original" home folders still in place; or recovery mode? command-R

If that doesn’t work, set music folders and photos libraries to locations on external drive

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201517
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201625


texts: Bluetooth Speakers for Apple TV (4th Generation) Volume Control

texts:
I'm in the market for speakers for the Apple TV 4th Generation. I'd like to be able to control the volume level of the speakers via the Siri Remote. If this works via IR or Bluetooth, either option is fine.

(I'm kind of annoyed the the AppleTV does not use it's own volume control like on the iPhone when it does not have a valid audio device that it can find.)

Please, only reply if you know for sure that the speakers do work with the Siri remote once you've paired the speakers with the AppleTV.


texts: Weird problems with Safari: search bar and tabs

texts:
Suddenly Safari is having weird problems:

The search bar is no more searching: I can type URLs but the suggestions are not appearing and queries are not sent to Google (or any other search engine I choose in the preferences)
If I open a new tab, the tab is not shown: I see the old one in dark grey, the new one is open but not shown in the tab bar. The address bar shows the URLs of both tabs superimposed

Restarting the whole machine did not bring anything.

Any idea what could I try to fix the problem? I am using Safari 9.0.3 on El Capitan.


texts: Shocking? - MacBook stubby earthed charger UK

texts:
I have no idea why. But apple have not earthed the stubbly plug for the macbook pro transformer. So on the short lead the only way the charger is earthed is when I touch it or the macs unibody which gives you a sort of vibrating feeling on your palms.

When I went to the genius bar to complain about it they said that it was completely 'normal'. Where their definition of normal is that every MacBook does it. I have had 4 MacBooks and all have done it.

The genius did say that he though he has seen a few earthed 3pin plugs. So my question is where can I pick one up? or how could we force apple to earth the stubby plugs and recall them?


texts:
I used to have Du-meter app to track the bandwidth status (upload / download sped) from the topbar, but it was discontinued some years ago.
I recently saw someone in a video call using an interesting app to track not only bandwidth, but other indicators such as CPU usage, Memory usage, etc. At least, I was able to capture a screenshot:

Zoomed shot of relevant area

I tried to find system & network applications within the App Store, but most of them are old and not updated.
Is anyone able to recognise the app from the screenshot?


texts: Use F12 to open Developer Tools on Chrome

texts:
I have already configured so that F keys act as "standard function keys" (just regular F1-F12).

How can I configure F12 to open the Developer Tools on Chrome?


texts: Can I make Caps Lock always switch to a specific input language?

texts:
My 12" MacBook has the Chinese (Simplified, Pinyin) hardware keyboard and it has the default function on Caps Lock that lets you switch the language input between Chinese and English.

However, I also use Japanese, Korean and Russian keyboards and found out that the capslock doesn't let you switch between Chinese and English. It just switches to the last used keyboard. So for example, if you type in English, switch to Korean, switch to English, and tap on the Caps Lock, you get the Korean keyboard, not Chinese.

I always want Chinese keyboard on whenever I tap Caps Lock. Is it possible on macOS?


texts: How to turn off automatic typing correction in Lion?

texts:
Since upgrading to Lion I notice that typing is automatically getting "corrected".

For example, I type "I posted to elance that" and the word elance automatically changes to "glance".  I back up and change the 'g' to an 'e' and it changes it back to "glance" again.

I first noticed it in Mail, but I see it's also happening here in Safari too.

How do I turn this off?  Note: I don't mind the 'red-squiggle' when it thinks there's a typo, but I don't want it automatically changing my text.


texts: What is the best free FTP server for Mac OS X Server?

texts: I'm running Mac OS X Snow Leopard server on a mac mini and was wondering what the best free FTP server was? I hear okay things about pure-ftpd but I'd like something with an easy to manage UI as well etc...


texts: How to run an AppleScript when Mac starts charging in "AC Power"?

texts:
I have an AppleScript that has to run when my Mac switches to AC Power and it has to run at regular intervals till it switches back to Battery Power.
I have a sample plist file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>show-battery-warning</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
        <string>/PATH/TO/YOUR/SCRIPT</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

What should I change or add here?
I searched for this in a lot of places. But cannot find anything convincing
Or is there any way to totally avoid this and use the Automator app instead?
PS: My main objective is to display a notification when the battery charge exceeds 90% when charging.


texts: How to install the latest compatible MacOS version?

texts:
I have a Mac Mini (Mid 2011, Core i5, 8GB RAM) running OS X Lion.

This Mac cannot run MacOS Mojave, so I'm trying to find out:

which MacOS version is the last compatible with this Mac
how to get the update?

Things I tried:

I installed all available updates in Software Update, yet I'm not proposed an upgrade to a later OS X version.
Searching the App Store for MacOS only offers MacOS Mojave.
Using MacOS internet recovery (Option-Command-R) installs Lion again.


texts: What is the Apple Watch to iphone pairing animation called?

texts: I need to build something similar for my own app and am heavily inspired by this animation.  I despise QR codes and would love something like this and am comfortable designing it from scratch.  Just don't know where to begin.


texts: Should I buy from an Apple Store, a reseller, or online?

texts: Does it matter where I purchase an Apple product (Macbook Pro), or will I get essentially the same product with the same level of support no matter where I buy it?


texts:
Recently I bought the iphone 5s and I am under my boyfriends icloud account. today I shut my phone off and turned it back on and when he texted me is icloud email showed up. when I text his phone number he gets it but when he replies it comes back under the email.

How do I fix this problem?


texts: how do you cancel a pending purchase in iTunes

texts: I have a pending purchase from the app store.  I have not downloaded the purchase and I would like to now cancel the purchase.


texts: Macbook Pro Retina running at native resolution

texts:
A question I've had in my head since I first saw screenshots of the display preference pane on the new Retina MBP is this: Can it be made to run with what you could call a 1.0 UI scaling factor (same amount of pixels for the same widget as you'd get on a regular MBP or say, an iMac)?

To clarify, the preference pane appears to allow you to select between several predefined scaling factors from "Like 1920x1200" (UI scaling factor = 1.5) through "Like 1440x900" (UI scaling factor = 2.0) to "Like 1024x640" (UI scaling factor = 2.8125) and there is also a radio button for "Best for Retina display".

Does this radio button for "Best for Retina display" set the UI scaling to 1.0 or does it simply set the scaling to the "default" 2.0?

If the latter, has anyone checked if there's some defaults write com.apple.[...] 1.0 setting available which forces the scaling of the UI to 1.0?

It might not always be a useful mode to run things in but I can see several use cases where it would be very useful for me to be able to set the UI scaling to 1.0 rather than somewhere between 1.5 and 2.8125...


texts: How to connect bluetooth magic mouse and keyboard on thunderbolt display, if they don't show up?

texts:
I used a thunderbolt cable to connect my Macbook and iMac.
Pressed cmd+f2 on my iMac and the displays works perfectly.

But I cannot use my bluetooth mouse and keyboard to control the Macbook.It cannot find the mouse or any other device.

How should I pair those peripherals?


texts: May be I miss something obvious but could you please give a hint how to check the size of all content of Smart Folder?


texts: Can I use a Walmart iPhone 5c charger instead of the original one

texts: I got a new charger at Walmart and it does not charge the phone. Is it because it is cheap?


texts: OS X ending - character when viewing source

texts:
To view an email's source code in Mail.app, you can press ⌘ cmd+⌥ option  U . However, the source view is cut off every line on a certain character. Changing a line like this:

Notice the = sign at the end of the lines. Is there a workaround for this issue?


texts: Apple ID's -- I have apple id's on two devices

texts: I have the same apple id on two devices can i delete one app on one device without deleting it on the other device. There are lots of apps which I would like to have and lots of apps which I wouldn't like to have. Also like games with levels etc. do you start from THAT level or from the beginning? E.G simsfreeplay I use icloud to back up this game can I download it on another device (same app) but with the same id?!


texts: Why are Wifi Calling and iPhone Cellular Calls Mutually Exclusive?

texts: I tried enabling "iPhone cellular calls" on my iPhone 5S, and the phone informed me that Wifi calling must be disabled to enable this feature. So it seems that the two features are not compatible with one another. Is this iPhone 5S specific? This is quite disappointing as I was hoping to have both enabled (cell service in my house isn't the best). It would be nice to know why they're mutually exclusive.


texts:
I'm experiencing an issue sending out email using Mail.app on my MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) running OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 (14C94b).

... shortly after hitting "Send message" button, I'm receiving following error:

The operation couldn’t be completed. (MCMailErrorDomain error 1045.)

I have NO problem sending out email from my iPhone 6, using same settings and from same network and I am able to connect to remote smtp server via Terminal.app as well.

I rechecked my username, password and the rest of the settings MULTIPLE times and not really sure what else to do...

Any ideas?


texts: Really switch among all the applications by shortcuts

texts:
I am using Mac OS X 10.7.3. ⌘+tab is used to switch among different applications, but sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I guess it is because some applications are hidden or minimized.

Is there a way to really switch among all the applications by shortcuts no matter whether they are hidden or minimized?


texts: Is it safe to delete the content of ~/Library/Logs?

texts: I would like to know if it is safe to delete the content of my ~/Library/Logs folder, because it is taking quite a lot of space. I have found that it should be save, but if there is someone who can confirm it it would be nice.


texts: Applescript to get track number of song from multi-cd album in iTunes?

texts:
I have an Applescript that reports the currently playing song name, album, song number, and total number of songs on the album. If the album comes from a single CD or if the song comes from CD 1 of a multi-CD album, everything works, and I get the following:

Song 2 of 30

However, if the album comes from a multi-CD set, then the song number is incorrect for songs from CD 2, CD 3, etc. Here's an example: L'Elisir d'Amore has two CDs, and in iTunes, it is entered as such (e.g., CD 1 of 2 and CD 2 of 2). The script correctly reports there are 30 songs (16 on CD 1 and 14 on CD 2). When playing a song from CD 1, everything is accurate. When playing a song from CD 2, the song number begins again at 1, so the very last song appears as

Song 14 of 30

because it is the 14th song on CD 2. Is there a way to get the script to display Song 30 of 30 for the last song on CD 2 without some kludge of figuring out the number of CDs, then counting up the songs in CD 1 and then adding to the track number of the song in CD 2? This kludge gets quite ugly for albums spanning as many as 14 CDs.

Here's the simplified bit of code:

tell application "iTunes"
    -- code to check that there is a current song
    set z_album to album of current track as string
    set z_num to count of (every track whose album is z_album)
    set z_song to name of current track as string
    set z_trk to track number of current track
    log z_song & " (" & z_trk & " of  " & z_num & ")"
end tell


texts: Is it possible to keep using iPhoto in parallel with Photos?

texts: Is it possible to keep using iPhoto after starting to use Photos?


texts: Pages: "Spelling and grammar" option disappeared

texts: I am writing a document in French and I can't change the spelling language from English to French. I usually manage to do that (Edit > Spelling and grammar), but it isn't working this time around: The "spelling and grammar" option seems to have been replaced with "spelling", and when I click on "spelling" the window that opens up doesn't allow me to change the language. It only allows me to specify whether I want to check the spelling in the entire document or in the main text body. I hope you can help.


texts: How do I record my screen on one space and work on another?

texts:
QuickTime Player allows you to easily record your screen on macOS. However, neither does it seem to allow to record a specific window nor can I record in a different space than I am currently working on (it will only record a specific part of the screen that is in view).
Is there any reasonable (preferably free and light-weight) alternative to achieve this?


texts: iPod Touch thinks it's full when it isn't

texts:
I just got a refurbished iPod Touch.  I synced it to my work computer rather than my Mac at home because it is mainly for PodCasts.  It was working great, until I put my music on iTunes over a network share at home and accidentally told the iPod Touch to sync all music.
Ever since then, every time I try to sync my iPod Touch it tells me that it does not have enough space to sync all the data I am trying to sync.
The problem with that, is I'm only trying to sync about 30 total Podcasts, all of which are audio and none are longer than an hour.

I have reset the iPod to factory settings and still get the same thing.

In fact, I just told it (after a restore to factory settings) to sync nothing.  Literally unchecked every sync option in iTunes and it is still telling me I have too much data being synced.

The iPod itself tells me that it has 6.5gigs of free space, but iTunes says I have 15.7 gigs of Music synced to it.

Anyone seen this before or have any idea what I can do?


texts: Best way to split large media files for sharing

texts: I have a large .mkv file that I am looking to share with a friend. My Dropbox limit is 2GB so I am looking for a simple way to split the file in to chunks of say 1gb, send them individually and the have him recompile it on his end.


texts: Which purchasing option is best - Free+IAP or paid?

texts:
I've noticed that several apps on the iOS App Store offer two purchasing options:

Free app, then an in-app purchase of $x to the full version
The full version of the app for an immediate purchase of $x

(Infuse is one such example)

Given that both purchasing methods get you exactly the same thing (that is, a working full version of the app) why would a developer go to the additional effort to make available both #1 and #2, rather than just have #1 in the App Store?

Please note

I'm looking for fact-based and not opinion-based answers. For example, a fact-based answer is that if you use Family Sharing then IAPs are not supported.


texts: Keyboard shortcut to take me directly to Mission Control system preference pane

texts:
I have an iMac (27", 2017, High Sierra) and for various reasons I find myself often having to change my mission control settings.

As I prefer keyboard navigation., is there a native macOS keyboard shortcut that can take me straight to the  mission control preferences, or do I need to create one myself?


texts: What is the difference between a MacBook Pro MPXW2D/A-056332 and MPXV2D/A-056248

texts:
I have been doing some research in preparation for buying a new laptop, and I am having trouble figuring out the differences between different offerings. For example, one vendor offers both a model which the vendor calls "MPXW2D/A-056332" as well as one called "MPXV2D/A-056248". Both have the same price and the same specs, but the vendor only lists some general specs such as size of RAM and SSD, clock frequency of CPU, etc. The more subtle differences are missing.

What are the differences between the two? And how can I figure that out myself? Identify your MacBook Pro only confirms that those are, in fact, latest model 13″ MacBook Pros, but doesn't explain the differences between them. Following the link leads to the Apple Tech Specs page for that model, but that doesn't explain the differences either.

EveryMac's Lookup page identifies both as a Apple MacBook Pro "Core i5" 3.1 13" Touch/Mid-2017, but also doesn't explain what the differences between the two models are. Same with Wikipedia.

It gets even worse trying to compare offers from different vendors which only list different subsets of the specs each.

How can I find out what the differences between those two (and other) models are, or at least determine whether the differences are significant or irrelevant?


texts: Give a short name / nick name to a printer in iOS?

texts:
In iOS is it possible to give a short name / nick name to a printer ? I have several printers of the same spec distributed through out a building, that all show up as Epson-7620.

I know there is a feature where you can "identify" a printer, which will make it beep. But this is slow if you have to go through 5 printers to find the one you want.

Im currently running iOS 12.x on an iPhone 8.


texts: Can SteerMouse sensitivity be automated?

texts: I have to adjust the cursor sensitivity in SteerMouse every time I switch between my home mouse and my work mouse. Is there a way to do this programmatically?


texts: Can I connect a second TB Display to my MacBook Air?  I currently have just one TB and would like to add a second


texts: How not to download all emails when setting up a new Mail account?

texts:
When I add a new Email account, Mail application automatically downloads All messages, but I do not need all the messages to be available on my Mac.

Is there a way to tell Mail app to only down messages of the last 3/6 months?


texts: Backup Time Capsule to 'cloud' / online backup provider

texts:
I've got a 3 TB Time Capsule that stores a range of files and Time Machine backups. I’d like to be able to backup the whole Time Capsule offsite, ideally using a "cloud" backup provider.

The Time Capsule itself is a stand alone unit (not tethered to any machine). Is this possible?


texts: How can 2020 16" MacBook Pro output to 2 displays that also get used by a PC? (See diagram)

texts:
I have a new 2020 Apple MacBook Pro with two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports on each side, and I have an old desktop Windows 10 PC with a GeForce GTX 970 graphics card that has 2 DVI outputs, 1 HDMI output, and 1 DisplayPort output.
As shown in the diagram, I also have 1 keyboard, 1 mouse, and 1 headset.
Throughout the day, I sometimes need to use the MacBook, and sometimes I need to use the PC. (I have no desire for them to communicate with each other or share files.)
Goal: I'd love if my 1 keyboard, 1 mouse, and 1 headset would automatically work with whichever of the 2 computers I wanted to be using at the moment, and I'd love if the active computer would display an extended desktop across 2 monitors too (and I'll leave the MacBook Pro lid closed).

I've heard that MacBook's don't support Multi-Stream Transport (MST) ("daisy-chaining"). Is that true of mine too? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210754 is unclear.
Daisy-chaining was just one idea, and if it's not possible, I still want to achieve my goal.
I am willing to buy whatever is necessary to accomplish my goal (e.g. whichever two 23"+ monitors, whichever cable adapters or KVM switches, etc), but I can't figure out whether what I'm trying to do is even possible. What would work?
UPDATE: Or what about this diagram using 3 USB-C cables on the MacBook Pro? Maybe certain monitors act as a KVM?

P.S. I used https://app.creately.com for drawing the diagram, which I mention in case you'd find it easiest to draw something when answering.


texts: Where have my safari, App Store, iTunes Store, and Siri gone?

texts: I was trying to manage storage and deleting pictures to clear up space. I went back to my home screen and noticed something was different. Well it seems my Safari icon is gone. Also iTunes and my AppStore is nowhere to be found. It's been this way for two weeks and I've been tryin to search all through my phone to find em. When I go to settings I can't find any if them either. I thought about askin Siri to bring em up for me but she seems to be gone also!! And it comes up some voice control thing! Can anyone help?! How can I get them back?


texts: Split a single page PDF into multiple pages

texts:
Is there an easy way (in Preview or whatever) to scale up and split a PDF file with a single page into multiple pages? What I would like is to split say an A3 paper document into two A4 pages, to print separately and then put together with tape.

How can I do such a thing in OS X?


texts: How do I correctly use applescript 2.3 script library "use" rather than "tell"

texts:
When I use my library this way applescript will not parse the display dialog line, treating dialog as an identifier!

Can anyone explain why this is not being understood in the way I want it to be? Many thanks!
** UPDATE ** Both the scripts below will now compile and work properly

use myLib : script "IHDatabase" -- the name of the library
-- UPDATE -- See also my answer below
use scripting additions
-- UPDATE -- without the above statement this script will not compile
set db to IHDatabase of myLib at "~/Desktop/TestDB.db"
-- IHDatabase handler returns an IHDB script object
tell db
    add_sql("drop table if exists testtable;")
    add_sql("create table testtable (firstname, lastname, country);")
    add_sql("insert into testtable values('Ray', 'Barber', 'USA');")
    add_sql("insert into testtable values('jj', 'Sancho', 'Spain');")
    add_sql("insert into testtable values('Adam', 'Bell', 'Canada');")
    add_sql("insert into testtable values('Bruce', 'Phillips', 'USA');")
    add_sql("insert into testtable values('Kim', 'Hunter', 'USA');")
    add_sql("insert into testtable values('Kevin', 'Bradley', 'USA');")
    add_sql("select * from testtable;") -- columns are separated by pipes ("|") in the result.
    set testtable_result to run_sql()
    log testtable_result & return & return
    set title to "So far, the table contents are: " & return & return
    display dialog title & testtable_result buttons {"Done"} default button 1 with icon 1
end tell

But if I write it like this, with an extra level of tell nesting, it works OK:

tell script "IHDatabase" -- the name of the library
    set db to IHDatabase at "~/Desktop/TestDB.db"
    -- IHDatabase handler returns an IHDB script object
    tell db
        add_sql("drop table if exists testtable;")
        add_sql("create table testtable (firstname, lastname, country);")
        add_sql("insert into testtable values('Ray', 'Barber', 'USA');")
        add_sql("insert into testtable values('jj', 'Sancho', 'Spain');")
        add_sql("insert into testtable values('Adam', 'Bell', 'Canada');")
        add_sql("insert into testtable values('Bruce', 'Phillips', 'USA');")
        add_sql("insert into testtable values('Kim', 'Hunter', 'USA');")
        add_sql("insert into testtable values('Kevin', 'Bradley', 'USA');")
        add_sql("select * from testtable;") -- columns are separated by pipes ("|") in the result.
        set testtable_result to run_sql()
        log testtable_result & return & return
        set title to "So far, the table contents are: " & return & return
        display dialog title & testtable_result buttons {"Done"} default button 1 with icon 1
    end tell
end tell

FYI the library is:

property name : "IHDatabase"
property version : "1.0"

--IHDatabase class
on IHDatabase at dbname
    script IHDB
        property loc : missing value -- tells SQLite where to put our db if it doesn't exist, identifies it if it does.
        property head : missing value -- the opening statement of every future command to our db.
        property tail : missing value --ends every query started with "head".
        property sql_stmt_list : missing value -- we build up a SQL program here

        on init(dbname)
            set loc to space & dbname & space
            set head to "sqlite3" & loc & quote
            set tail to quote
            set sql_stmt_list to {}
            return me
        end init

        on add_sql(stmt)
            set stmt_space to stmt & space
            set sql_stmt_list to sql_stmt_list & stmt_space
        end add_sql

        on run_sql()
            set rows to do shell script head & sql_stmt_list & tail
            set sql_stmt_list to {}
            return rows
        end run_sql

    end script
    return IHDB's init(dbname)
end IHDatabase


texts:
My computer is used for website development. As part of the website application, I have created log files, which previously had been stored in /var/log/webapps/appname (where appname varies per function). These files were left in place during macOS upgrades as expected.
Some time during Mojave or Catalina, these log files were removed upon an OS upgrade. So I moved the location out of /var/log and into my user space into /Users/jas/Websites/RepHunter/log/webapps/. That has not helped--upon any OS upgrade, the log files and directories are removed. This is an annoyance.
Now I have noticed that these log files get removed by the system between system upgrades at some random-seeming time.
I do not use tools such as Onyx to remove log files.
What can I do to find out what is causing this undesired log file removal and stop it?
EDIT:

Web server is apache. Have never had the removal of logs until recently.


texts: Change password for iCloud keychain / prevent it from being unlocked with computer password

texts:
I use iCloud Keychain across iOS devices and my MacBook Pro. I recently discovered that on my Mac I can access the passwords stored in the iCloud keychain simply with my (admin) login credentials. Is there a way to give the iCloud Keychain a specific password?
I would like to prevent the iCloud Keychain from being unlockable with my computer login (password and Touch ID) and, ideally, on my iOS devices also with my online Apple ID.

Alternatively, if the above is not possible, can I use a different Keychain for syncing?  I know, on the Mac I can create personal Keychains that have their own unique passwords. Is there a way to sync these Keychains across devices? So far I was unable to get them to show up on my iPhone.

Thank you very much!

EDIT:
Following suggestions from bmike's answer below who refers to this question, there are possibilities how to specifically change either the login password (using passwd) or the password of a specific keychain (using security ... – follow the link for further information).  However, what I am trying to do is to change the iCloud keychain password.

The iCloud keychain shows up as a separate keychain in the sidebar of Keychain Access, but it doesn't seem to be stored in any accessible place (i.e., in a .keychain-db file) the password of which could be changed via the methods suggested.

If I get the info from any item in the iCloud keychain I can simply show the password by entering my login password.  It asks me for the "Local Items" keychain, which seems to be the same like my login keychain (at least it obeys the login password).

Even when I try to specify "Access Control" for an item, I'm not allowed. In regular items, I can click "Ask for Keychain password" under the "Access Control" tab. But in the items under iCloud Keychain it displays "Access for this item cannot be edited" there.

Any further help is much appreciated!


texts: Transferring files between two Apple ID accounts

texts:
I am currently in a joint Apple ID account and I'd like to transfer the files and data in my iPhone to a new individual account I created. My iCloud storage is completely full up on the joint account.

Q: Is there a way to transfer my data onto my Mac or a new iCloud server so I can put them onto my new Apple ID account?


texts: Is there a way to make Adium open links with Google Chrome?

texts:
When someone sends me a link in Adium I'll click it and Safari will open up. I'd like links to be opened by Google Chrome instead.

I've had a look around the web and in the preferences but for the the life of me I can't figure this simple one out.

Any clues?

NB: My default browser is Google Chrome.

EDIT

I'm running version 1.4.1 (i.e. up-to-date). I use this SkypePlugin. Apart from that it's plain vanilla Adium.


texts: Google Chrome repeatedly displays monospaced fonts wrong as “Times New Roman”

texts:
I observe an extremely annoying font problem in Google Chrome for Mac. When I visit a page like GitHub or Bitbucket (which use monospaced fonts, e.g. for code) I see the HTML sections that are meant to be displayed in a monospaced font displayed in “Times New Roman”. This pretty much makes these sites useless for me.

I found a blog post that describes a similar problem and which suggests to clear Mac OS X’s font caches with these terminal commands:

$ sudo atsutil databases -remove
$ atsutil server -shutdown
$ atsutil server -ping

This eliminates the problem but it only lasts until I restart the computer. I would have to issue these commands every time before I start Google Chrome after a computer restart to have monospaced fonts on these sites display correctly.

For clarification here are two screenshots that display the problem.

This is how it looks before I remove the font caches:

This is how it looks after the font caches have been cleared and how it should look:

Does anyone know of this problem and can provide a solution?


texts: What workarounds are there for websites that block Safari Reader?

texts:
I just opened Ars Technica's review of Lion intending to read it with Safari 5.1's Reader but it appears to somehow block Reader. I tried the following with no success:

changed the extension on the url from .ars to .html but that didn't work
Installed Readability's Safari extension but I couldn't get it to work to with any page so it might be broken in Safari 5.1
Saved it to Instapaper but it only saved the first page.

Apparently Ars Technica thinks Safari reader is a "evil genius" plan from Apple but I think this theAppleBlog post sums up the issue fairly well.

I understand that well written long form articles take more time to write but I don't think breaking an article up into multiple pages is the answer. I know I can pay Ars Technica $5 a month to remove ads but I only ever read their Apple software and hardware reviews and Apple doesn't release new hardware or software every month. I just want a free 'lean back' reading experience. How about add more ads for longer articles?

Anyways I know this isn't a discussion forum so:

Is there a way to use Safari Reader on blocked sites for free?
If not is there any other service that provides a free 'lean back' experience for these blocked sites?


texts: Time Machine: disk was not ejected properly

texts:
I have an external hard drive (Verbatim #47576) setup as a Time Machine drive.

Everyday, at random intervals, the computer warns me that the disk was not ejected properly. Why? How to prevent that? Is there a real problem?

iMac8,1 , MacOS X 10.6.7, Darwin 10.7.0,


texts:
I am trying to use the ditto command after connecting to a PC across a network with a shared C drive. I try:

ditto -V smb://10.XXX.XXX.XXX/C/users/john.smithy/documents /volumes/"macintosh hd"/users/john.smithy/documents

but I get an error that the path can't be found!! Even though I am connected and can navigate via Finder.

Please help this hapless Windows kiddie make this command work.


texts: How can I stop by External Display from switching "Spaces"

texts:
Somehow I enabled my mac to have these "spaces" and I always have a second "desktop" - I don't know how to get rid of it.

However, either when no apps are open or if there is a fullscreen app, I do not want my external thunderbolt monitor to switch to it's new "space". I only want to switch spaces on my laptop monitor. Is there a way to disable this? I can't even find out how to disable my second desktop, period.


texts: What's the right ownership for /usr/local for current macOS and Homebrew versions?

texts:
Someone told me that

  Homebrew no longer requires /usr/local/ to have an ownership such that it can be written by brew commands ...

I recall long time ago I have to manually change the ownership for files and directories in /usr/local/.

Now how do I change them back and what is the default or best ownership setting for files and directories in /usr/local/ for the newest macOS and Homebrew versions?


texts: I want to remove all songs from iPhone 5, have unchecked and synced but iTunes still says I have 5GB of audio!

texts:
I always thought I knew a fair amount about iPhones/iTunes etc but this has me stumped!

I have a 16 GB iPhone 5 running the latest version of iTunes on a Windows Laptop. I do not have iTunes Match.

Due to having 100gb of music on the laptop I have already 'checked' the following options in the iPhone 'summary'

Sync only ticked songs and videos
Manually manage music and videos

I then went into 'music' and unchecked all the artists, albums etc to the point it said 0 songs (in light grey next to where it says sync music)

So looking at that it should mean I have no songs selected, so none on my phone... but no!

It is still telling me I have 5gb of audio! I have gone back and forth applying/syncing/checking/unchecking in the hope I have overlooked something but I am now totally stuck on what to try next.

All I want to do is remove all songs from the phone and then put some fresh music back on.


texts:
I just changed from a normal macbook pro to the gorgeous mbp retina display, I have been using it 3 days and Im starting with headaches and eye pain!
I really dont know wats happening, I mean the display is beautiful but although I use it in the minor bright Im still having eye and head issues!

If anyone can help me with an experience or something it would be really nice.


texts: Applications open on login when they shouldn't be

texts: My MacBook will open applications (even when no applications were open on shutting down or restarting it) when it boots up. I checked the login items on system preferences and nothing should be opening.


texts: How to store SSH Credentials in Terminal

texts:
I am new to the MacBook and I am running El Capitan.

I'm migrating my machine usage from a PC to a MacBook. I am long time user of PuTTY and SuperPuTTY on a PC.

I want to create and save login credentials to my web servers in MacBook Terminal just like I've done in SuperPuTTY on the PC.

Is it possible to save web server login credentials in Mac Terminal?

Here is My Overall Objective:

I would like to know if there is an easy way in Mac Terminal to store the following command line login credentials and then use some sort of a shortcode to connect to my web server through Terminal:

ssh -p 2200 root@123.456.789.012
Password: ****************************************************************

I manage and connect to 5 different web servers so sorting out and organizing the login credentials in a short/fast connection method would be a huge time saver. Especially because my passwords are cryptic 64-character strings.


texts:
I am trying to set up a wifi hotspot using my iPhone XR running iOS 13, which I wish to connect to using my Windows 7 Pro laptop. On the iPhone I go to Settings | Personal Hotspot and switch on, and I have set the name and password of the network. Then on the laptop I can see the name of the network, and I can connect to it.

The problem is that it's showing on the laptop as unconnected to the internet even when the iPhone is definitely connected to the internet because I can browse the web with it. What settings do I need to change?


texts: Use the same external hard drive for two different Time Machine's?

texts:
Is it possible to use the same external hard drive for two different Time Machine backups of two distinct MacBooks?
Is yes, how do you have to set up the external hard drive, using which tools?


texts: How can I enable graphics on local macOS from remote Linux using SSH?

texts:
host: Ubuntu 64-bit

local: macOS 10.13 64-bit

I'm attempting to run a program on a remote Linux machine through ssh, and I want the GUI to appear on my local macOS laptop.

When I execute ssh -v -X user@host or ssh -v -Y user@host, I receive two messages that may be worth noting:

With -X flag:

debug1: No xauth program.
Warning: Untrusted X11 forwarding setup failed: xauth key data not generated

With -Y flag:

debug1: No xauth program.
Warning: No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding

When I log onto the host, and execute which xauth I get the output: /usr/bin/xauth, which is confusing me because ssh is stating that there is no xauth program.

Additionally, when I do end up running the program thru ssh on my mac (just the command line version, no graphics), I get these errors:

libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
X Error of failed request:  BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)
  Major opcode of failed request:  149 (GLX)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  3 (X_GLXCreateContext)
  Value in failed request:  0x0
  Serial number of failed request:  23
  Current serial number in output stream:  26

How can I fix this so that I can enable graphics to run on my local mac from the host Linux computer? Is this a mac problem?


texts: Are there any options to control organization for the new photo app?

texts:
Whichever way we set 'Summarize Photos', my wife's iphone shows the same unwieldy display of the thousands of pictures she has synced from iPhoto to her iPhone. Organized by date with tiny thumbnails. No sign of her events or albums.

Is there any way to make 'Photos' respect an organization from iPhoto?


texts:
What is the best way to clone a disk between two Macs? I ask this every couple years or so and every time I get the same answer. "Use Carbon Copy Cloner", they say. But the unfortunate fact is that CCC is a file-level copy between disks. When I migrate to my new Mac, sure all the files are there but there are quirks here and there (including file dates being different etc).

So, really now, once again: how do you clone the disk over byte-for-byte?


texts: exFat Hard Drive not showing up on mac OS X 10.7.5

texts:
I formatted a 1TB Seagate USB 3.0 hard drive as ExFat to be used on both a MacBook and a Windows PC. The formatting was done on Windows and there isn't any issue when I access it through Windows. I have tried the hard drive on 2 MacBooks so far and it doesn't come up on either one of them when I plug it in. The MacBooks are running OS X 10.7.5.

I was under the impression that OS X was capable of operating with exFat. You'll have to excuse my ignorance to this as I mainly work with Windows or Linux.

Any help would be appreciated and if there is a work around to this problem it would be much appreciated.


texts: macOS High Sierra - Time Machine no longer recognizing iMac backups on USB drive

texts:
My iMac backups that are stored on an external USB drive are suddenly not being recognized for backing up. Using option key and pull-down menu, I can select the set of backups on this USB drive and can restore from them, but I cannot get Time Machine to use that folder for more incremental backups — It wants to create a brand new backup (for which there is not room).

I have deleted the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist and rebooted the iMac, but the problem persists. I think the cause may be related to my very brief use of this USB backup file with Migration Assistant to put files onto an external hard drive: that drive now seems to be linked to this backup file in the Backups.backupdp folder.

How do I change that? I have discussed this at length with Apple support but was given no really useful advice.


texts:
I have an Early 2015 MacBook Pro Retina, which I hard-restarted earlier (holding the power button) due to a software crash. It turned off just fine but refused to turn back on again (no backlight, no drive noise, nothing). I thought I remembered a fairly high battery percentage, but to be sure I connected it to power and tried again, unsuccessfully. I left it for a while, then tried an SMC reset with the adapter connected.

This seemed to work, since the power indicator light turned green for a few seconds (which makes sense). This somewhat fixed the issue in that the machine actually showed signs of life when I tried turning it back on, but it would just display a black screen with the red/white low battery symbol and the lightning bolt underneath it.

I left it charging for a while and then had to disconnect it for about an hour to take it with me. When I plugged it back in, it actually powered on and booted up successfully. However, the battery indicator is now perpetually at 0%, and the battery info is rather disturbing:

Battery Information:

Model Information:

  Manufacturer: SMP
  Pack Lot Code:    0
  PCB Lot Code: 0
  Firmware Version: 702
  Hardware Revision:    1
  Cell Revision:    3217

Charge Information:

  Charge Remaining (mAh):   0
  Fully Charged:    No
  Charging: No
  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):   1708
  Health Information:
  Cycle Count:  564
  Condition:    Replace Now
  Battery Installed:    Yes
  Amperage (mA):    0
  Voltage (mV): 8421

I've also tried an NVRAM reset, with no change. I read somewhere that doing an SMC reset while booted up and logged in solved similar problems in some cases, but that seems a bit risky as far as my data is concerned.

I'd really appreciate any ideas - thank you!

EDIT

I should also mention that the charger light isn't doing anything unusual (i.e. not turning on when the charger is connected). Also, the machine is noticeably slower than when everything was working normally.


texts: TextEdit shows dialogs about not having permission to open any files

texts:
About once per day, TextEdit starts showing dialogs like this when I try to open any file:

  The document “test.txt” could not be opened. You don’t have permission.

  To view or change permissions, select the item in the Finder and choose File > Get Info.

There's usually messages like this in system.log:

9/13/12 10:41:42.952 PM sandboxd[21081]: ([357]) TextEdit(357) deny file-read-data /Users/lauri/Desktop/test.txt
9/13/12 10:41:55.118 PM TextEdit[357]: NSFileVersion tried to tried to add a new generation and failed. Versioned file URL: file://localhost/Users/lauri/Notes/temp.txt, contents URL: file://localhost/Users/lauri/Notes/temp.txt.sb-de6477ff-BhVNrq, error: Error Domain=GSLibraryErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (GSLibraryErrorDomain error 1.)"
9/13/12 10:41:55.118 PM TextEdit[357]: NSDocument failed to preserve the old version of a document. Here's the error:
Error Domain=GSLibraryErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (GSLibraryErrorDomain error 1.)"
9/13/12 10:41:55.119 PM TextEdit[357]: <Document: 0x7f971d00a510>: An error occurred while attempting to preserve the backup file at file://localhost/Users/lauri/Notes/temp.txt.sb-de6477ff-BhVNrq: Error Domain=GSLibraryErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (GSLibraryErrorDomain error 1.)"

I can't open any files until I quit and reopen TextEdit. I also have to delete the backup files (like temp.txt.sb-de6477ff-BhVNrq) manually.

I've had the issue on two different installations. I have tried deleting the sandbox container and repairing permissions from the recovery partition. Does anyone know what's going on?


texts: OS X Mountain Lion Terminal and tabs take ages to load

texts:
When I open a new Terminal tab I have to wait at least 10-20 seconds before I can work with it, I have followed previous suggestions here: How do I speed up new Terminal tab loading time?

But so far I still have slow tabs. When I open the inspector during a tab loading I see the following process:

login
bash
bash
ruby
sw_vers
dirname
sh

The bottom 4 start and stop during the inactive time in my tab, until the tab is finally useable and I only have login and bash remaining.

Can anyone offer any help here, it's very frustrating.

TIA


texts: Is it possible to identify who deleted my shared folder?

texts:
My Mac, in my workplace, can be accessed from other Mac systems (file sharing is enabled, and it has no password set).

I've found out there are 2 folders were deleted (missing from my desktop).

How can I check who was connected to my system or who was access my desktop remotely, so that I can identify who deleted my folder?


texts:
I'm having problems with the DNS resolution after a wakeup from sleep.
The system I'm running is Mac OS X Lion 10.7, and I am properly connected to my Wifi.

When I issue a ping google.com in the Terminal, it just works. But going through any browser or Application that requires internet access, they all can't resolve the hostname.

I can solve this issue by going to System Preferences > Network Settings and I deactive/activate my Wifi. After that everything works again.

Where else can I look into to solve this permanently?


texts: Have Siri tell me when something is ready

texts: Is there a way to set a reminder or an event so when that event's time comes the iphone will say something like "your eventA is ready, keep in mind the traffic".  Where that phrase is something i can control?


texts: I am using MacBook Air . Few hours ago I removed iTunes, iMovies, Books and avast. I have noticed that after removal of the apps, when I switch it on it gets heated up after running for sometime. Is it due to removal of the preinstalled apps or some other reasons ? Can anybody suggest me a probable solution ?


texts: Can I configure Apple Mail so that it does not cache any mails from Googlemail?

texts: I'm using Apple Mail on Yosemite with my Gmail account(s). At the moment I have around 10 GB (!!) of mail database locally. Is there a way to use iMail so that it does not cache anything? It would then basically only work if there is any internet connection.


texts: I'm transferring files over Airdrop between 2 Macs running Yosemite. Before (10.8) it was pretty fast, reaching around 30M/second. Now (Yosemite 10.10) it's around 300k/second. Is this drop in speed because of the Yosemite upgrade or is something wrong with my Mac (it's a mid-2012)?


texts: Is there a way to move window off top edge of display?

texts:
I was wondering, since macOS is letting us move the window up top only until the title bar hits the top edge - is there a way to move a window past it?

There are some apps like VLC with which this could be possible (I can drag the video by clicking and holding anywhere in the picture and not by title bar).

Currently running macOS Mojave 10.14.4.


texts: Trackpad stopped working on mac book pro 2019

texts:
For testing purpose, I created a new user profile and the trackpad is working as usual !. However, It is still not working on my main user profile. I did the following with no success so far:

Re-install the macOS from the macOS recovery
Delete the com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad plist file from the ~/Library/Preferences through two ways: file system and Default command
Reset the SMC
Reset the NVRAM

macOS Catalina 10.15.5


texts: AppleScript to find old mail messages is slow in ScriptEditor

texts:
So I have an AppleScript that iterates over all the messages in various mailboxes and finds messages which meet various criteria and moves them to Deleted Items. The mailboxes in question are associated with an Exchange email account.

the problem is that this script is unbearably slow in ScriptEditor and while it runs it often makes Mail.app unusable. The script runs fine under osascript.

The relevant code fragment is given below

set accountList to {"Gmail"}
set folderList to {¬
{accountName:"Gmail", mailboxName:"INBOX/Stuff", staleDays:21}, ¬
{accountName:"Gmail", mailboxName:"INBOX/Things", staleDays:21} ¬
    }
set emailList to {¬
{accountName:"Gmail", fromAddress:"person@company.com", staleDays:14} ¬
    }
set excludeList to {"Trash", "Send Messages", "Drafts", "Deleted Messages", "Archive", "Deleted Items", "Sent Items"}

set currentDate to current date

tell application "Mail"
repeat with curFolder in folderList
    set curAccountName to the accountName of curFolder
    set mailAccount to account curAccountName
    set mailboxName to mailboxName of curFolder
    set curMailbox to mailbox mailboxName of account curAccountName
    repeat with i from 1 to number of messages in curMailbox
        try
            set curMessage to message i of curMailbox
            set difference to (currentDate - (date sent of curMessage)) div days
            if difference is greater than (staleDays of curFolder) then
                set mailbox of curMessage to mailbox "Trash" of account of mailbox of curMessage
            end if
        end try
    end repeat
end repeat

repeat with curAddress in emailList
    set curAccountName to the accountName of curAddress
    set mailAccount to account curAccountName
    set everyMailbox to every mailbox of mailAccount
    repeat with curMailbox in everyMailbox
        set curMailboxName to the name of curMailbox
        if curMailboxName is not in excludeList then
            repeat with i from 1 to number of messages in curMailbox
                try
                    set curMessage to message i of curMailbox
                    set difference to (currentDate - (date sent of curMessage)) div days
                    if difference is greater than (staleDays of curAddress) then
                        if (sender of curMessage) is (fromAddress of curAddress) then
                            set mailbox of curMessage to mailbox "Trash" of account of mailbox of curMessage
                        end if
                    end if
                end try
            end repeat
        end if
    end repeat
end repeat
end tell

What is slow? Something on the order of 1 message a second or slower. Often much slower. The script finishes in a hour or so (yea, I have a lot of mail) under osascript but I've never gotten the script to complete within 8 hours under ScriptEditor. The weird thing is that at times it may process hundreds of messages a second, then go back to being slow.

Interestingly: sometimes Mail.app is locked up and sometimes it's not. When it's locked up I suspect there's a deadlock issue but it's not consistent. Usually ScriptEditor (I'm running the script from there) and Mail are both using a full core of CPU. ScriptEditor often lists as Unresponsive in Activity Monitor.

There's no evidence that disk performance is an issue, there's plenty of memory free. It really seems to be an odd interaction between ScriptEditor and Mail.

Is there any known reason why this would happen?

Edit: Full code


texts:
A website is asking me to upload pdf documents but once I browse to upload all the files (pdf format) they are greyed out and not selectable.

I have tried Chrome, Safari, Firefox but there is no change in the behaviour.

It's not only one pdf, in which case I would think the file is corrupted or something.


texts: My icloud password does not work when prompted on start up.

texts: This is a problem that is driving me nuts. I have tried everything I can find to get this to resolve. When I start my computer, I get a popup that wants my icloud password. I enter it and the password is not accepted. I then go to the browser icloud log in and I can log-in just fine. iTunes has issues as well. I plug-in my iPhone 6 (IOS 8) and the program does not see the phone. I went so far as to reinstall the ios in the phone.  Was better for a while but now just does not see the phone. Prior to the iphone everything worked without much trouble. But was not using iCloud sync service.  I also have a pop-upo on start-up requesting my Keychain password for call.app and sometime messenger.app.


texts: What is the best charging strategy for a macbook?

texts:
I heard several strategy about macbook power supply connection:

keeping alway at least 50% of battery level
let unplugged until reaching the 10% warning
perform once a month a full discharge

What is the best strategy to keep the battery performant on the long run? I suppose it involve some physical battery notion but also how OSX handle the battery management at the software level.


texts: Did Dropbox 3.8.5 break multiple instances?

texts:
For a while, I've been running two Dropbox accounts, a personal and a work account, and it's been great.  The method that I'm using is with an Automator workflow that fires up on boot.  All that's in there, is the standard method found on the web for this...

bash
HOME=$HOME/Dropbox-second /Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox &

...that launches the second account.  Suddenly, I noticed that there was an update to 3.8.5, and now the first instance launches and syncs fine, but the second instance launches then sits forever with spinning arrows, and the status "Starting".  It's not just on one machine, it's on all of them.  Also, if I quit both instances, and launch the second (via the Automator script), it launches and syncs fine.  If I then double-click on the Dropbox app, to launch the first instance, now that is the one that just spins, saying, "Starting".

Anyone else had this?  Anyone found a work-around?

Thanks in advance


texts: Moving the treeview to the left side in QuollEyeTree

texts:
Is there any way to move the treeview to the left side in QuollEyeTree? By default the treeview is located at the top half:

For example in Macintosh Explorer the treeview is on the left side by default:


texts:
my question is, if there is MacBook power cable with mounting holes. I think better picture than thousand words, I mean this power cable end:

with mounting holes, somehow like this:


texts: App Store won't update iTunes; inconsistent with iWork

texts:
I have updated my (Late 2009) Mac Mini to Mavericks. "About This Mac" shows "OS X 10.9 (13A603).

However, I have not been able to update iTunes to version 11.1.2. The App Store shows that the update is available. It also shows several instances of it in my update history. After clicking "Update", the button quickly changes to "Installed". Closing and re-opening the App Store shows the update as available again. Checking within iTunes shows it is at version 11.1.1, so not actually updated. (Repeated several times)

The iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) have actually been updated, showing the correct versions. However, I occasionally one or more will also show up in the App Store as available as well; the behavior is similar to iTunes. If I scroll down, there are multiple instances in my update history as well.

Things I have tried:

Rebooting.
Selected "Store -> Check for Unfinished Downloads..." This appears to re-install the iWork apps, as evident by progress bars in Mission Control, even when they are not listed as needing an update. It does not seem to do anything for iTunes.
Delete iTunes and reinstall. OS X does not allow iTunes to be deleted. I have not yet tried this with iWork.
Selected "Debug -> Reset Application" (there is a hidden menu)
Selected "Debug -> Clear Cookies"
Selected "Debug -> Show Download Folder", and deleting the files there. A subsequent check for unfinished downloads puts them back.

These have had no effect, unless I described it above.

What can I do to get the updates properly installed?

Update: After letting the issue sit for a few days, the App Store no longer shows the iTunes update as available; but iTunes itself is still at 11.1.1.