texts: Disable Facebook/Hangouts notification sounds within MacOS

texts:
Recently, I have been receiving persistent audio notifications for Facebook Messenger without having any Facebook-affiliated website open. (Note: this is also occurring periodically for Google Hangouts.) The notifications persist when Chrome/Firefox/Safari are all simultaneously quit, and the notifications occur twice when the offending tab is open.

As far as I can tell, the only way to disable these persistent audio notifications is through Messenger itself. I am not a fan of this solution, and would prefer to disable these notifications from my side. Is there a way to disable the notifications from MacOS, rather than through Facebook?

This is similar to Facebook notification sound in OSX: cannot switch off, except that I would like a way to control my audio notifications via my OS, rather than Facebook. I would also like to know what is causing this sound to play, since it is neither browser nor application.

First, I went to into System Preferences > Notifications. There are no apparent culprit applications, except my browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari). After disabling the "Play sound for notifications" option on all three browsers simultaneously while the browsers were quit, the notification sound persisted. In System Preferences > Internet Accounts, I had no synced accounts except for iCloud. In System Preferences > Extensions, there was no apparent culprit.

Per drfrogsplat's response on What is causing this sound on my Mac?, I ran the following command:

find / -name "*.m4a" -or -name "*.aiff" -exec echo "Playing {}" \; -exec afplay "{}" \;

I was not able to find the Facebook notification sound that was bothering me.

Additionally:

macOS Mojave 10.14.2
no installed Facebook applications


texts: Slow WiFi speed on MacBook Pro late 2008 (A1286)

texts:
I'm using a cheap TP-Link WiFi router and i'm hitting a wall at around 30 Mbps.
I've tested with other laptops and they run fine to 100 Mbps.

I have Yosemite at the moment, and an interesting fact is that, in the past, i don't remember on what OS, i was able to hit 100 Mbps on WiFi.

Any suggestions regarding WiFi settings or chip firmware ?


texts:
I have an 2012 imac with the most current
Update software being High Sierra. I've seemed to have locked the firmware and I can't get passed it I don't have a receipt so no in store help. I've put "resetpassword" in terminal, I've took out the ram, I've made a bookable removable disk, I've put the original DVD that came with it and at this point I have a great looking paper weigjt. Please Help!!!


texts:
I was searching this for quite a while. Is it possible to loop videos (only mp4 will do) by default when opened with quickloop? Bonus points if it enables itself on < 30 sec videos.
I found this reddit thread but it has no useful comments. discussions.apple.com wasn't helpful either. Maybe plugins can help? I cannot find a working one.
I'm using MacOS Catalina.


texts: Installing Mavericks on brand new Macbook with Yosemite?

texts:
I want to buy a new MacBook Pro. However, it simply MUST be able to have a different operating system to Yosemite installed, as I need it to work with some hardware which is no longer supported with Yosemite.

Would it be possible to downgrade a new Macbook?

Thanks


texts: Is there such a thing as a iPad stylus with a (relatively) fine and hard nib?

texts:
I use the Griffin stylus and although it does the job well enough it's a long way removed from using a pen on a tablet - I find the soft nib makes it difficult to write accurately. The other pens I've seen all seem to have a similar design - presumably to make the nib appear to the iPad as a finger.

I understand pressure sensitivity isn't going to be an option but a relatively hard nib would make it a lot easier to 'write' on the iPad.


texts: Application that allows you to customize which keys to use for mousekeys

texts:
Is there an application for customizing mouse-keys, specifically choosing which keys to use?

I don't have a numpad so I can't use the built-in mouse-keys.


texts: How do i disable Fn Key on Microsoft Surface Ergonomic Keyboard for OS X?

texts:
I recently acquired a MS Surface Ergonomic Keyboard. Its a great device for everything other than a Fn lock key that is awkwardly placed between the CTRL and OPTION/WINDOWS key.

I've looked at the keyboard viewer to see what input is being communicated so i might try and override it in Karibener Elements - but the Keyboard Viewer is not showing any key inputs.

How do i find what key is being triggered and disable it?

Note: The 'Fn' key is stateful like a caps lock key.


texts: macOS: How to read the file system of a disc image

texts:
is there terminal command that shows/reads the file system(s) (and versions) of a .iso or .dmg image?
E.g. Udf 2.50/Joliet/hfs+


texts:
I am trying to use CamLink 4K, connected to a well-configured 2018 MacBook Pro (running Catalina 10.15.7, 19H15) with Apple’s USB-A to USB-C adapter, with mixed results. I am finding that the CamLink 4K starts out working fine, but sometimes goes blank/black as I continue to use the Mac. When this happens, my other two webcams (the “FaceTime HD Camera” built-in the MacBook Pro and the “LG UltraFine Camera” built in my external monitor) continue to work fine. Only the CamLink 4K goes dead. The CamLink 4K is still listed as a video source, but no video is being delivered. I am using it connected to a Sony a7Rii, but have the same problem with a7Riv.
Reading this Reddit post, How I finally got my Cam Link 4K to work reliably w Macbook Pro, it looks like I'm not the only user to struggle with this, and the conclusion there is not terribly satisfactory. I am trying their counsel to not have other USB devices connected in the nearby port, which seems to delay how quickly the CamLink gives out on me (but it eventually does). Sometimes disconnecting and reconnecting seems to fix it. Sometimes I seem to have to resort to a reboot.
All I am trying to do is to get a good, reliable connection to use my Sony cameras as quality webcams (and the Sony Imaging Edge Webcam is definitely a version 1.0 implementation and does not work, either).
If anyone if familiar with this sort of problem, that would be


texts: Create a shortcut in topbar for accessing folder quickly

texts: I want to create a icon in top menu for accessing folder quickly, is it possible?


texts: How to have my MacBook Pro safely hibernate when out of juice?

texts:
My all new MacBook Pro was on the battery, and warned me that the battery was almost finished. I left the Mac take care of himself. Later, I plugged the Mac and I pressed the button Power. Hearing the startup sound made me frosty. The Mac had shut down !

When my venerable old MacBook Pro runs out of battery, he goes safely into hibernation, and, when later I plug him and press the button Power, I have the white bars advancing on the screen and everything I had comes back to life ! This is very nice. How to have my new MacBook Pro do the same when he runs out of juice ?

On my new MacBook Pro, I have Mavericks.


texts: My iPhone screen suddenly goes black with circle waiting animation at the center. I forced restart it. And now it can't get past loading screen

texts: I was working, when I noticed my phone screen suddenly goes black with the familiar white circle animation. I can't do anything to my phone (and I'm now afraid it was a forced iOS system upgrade). After waiting for a moment, I decided to force restart it (press power + home) because even an iOS system upgrade doesn't take that long in the waiting screen. The iPhone restarted, showing its usual black apple on white background logo. But I have waited for 5 minutes and there's no sign of it will ever finished. I restarted it again, but the result is the same. What should I do?


texts: How to bypass the Lync for Mac error complying about incompatible version of Lync server?

texts:
“Cannot sign in because the server version is incompatible with Microsoft Lync. Contact your support team with this information.”

I am trying to use the Lynx for Mac 2011 (v14.0.5) instead of Communicator after our corporate Lynx servers was already upgraded.

The Windows users are able to use Lynx, if they do follow DisableServerCheck trick for Lynx.

Obviously, this doesn't work on Mac as there is no registry.

Any suggestions?


texts:
How to get back over overwritten data?

My case: photos and videos from iPhone?

My phone updated and restored and I never got to back up my phone.

Where does the overwritten data go and how do I get it back?


texts: How to delete one history entry in Safari on iOS?

texts:
On iOS, I have the history of Safari.

I want to delete some entries one by one. Is this possible ? I have tried going left — to no avail.

I have an iPad mini on iOS 7.


texts: Easy way to see a list of all the apps I have installed on my iPhone

texts: I'm looking for an easy way to see a list of all the apps that are currently installed on my iPhone (running iOS9). In earlier versions of iOS it was possible to just type a '.' into Spotlight and all the apps would come up in a list, but I haven't found a way to do this easily on iOS 9.


texts: Software to backup recently modified files in few directories

texts:
I used to use this software which used to pick recently modified files from a configurable set of directories and back it up (into another synced folder inside Dropbox).

The purpose is to recover files which were not backed up into Time Machine.

My SSD crashed and I can no longer find the software. Is there a similar software that you are using to fulfil the purpose?


texts: App Store shows cloud icon for Xcode 10.3, how to update from installed version 10.2.1?

texts:
I'm running MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 with Xcode 10.2.1 installed.  The Mac App Store doesn't show any update option for 10.3. In App Store, Account -> Purchases section shows Xcode with a Cloud with a down arrow icon, as if Xcode is not installed and needs a re-download.

The last time I had this issue and pressed the Cloud icon, I had issue with synchronising my GitHub account and had to reinstall everything.

How can I update to Xcode 10.3?

PS: Can't update Xcode recommends bypassing the App Store, but I had used the App Store in the past to install and update it. Given the download size, something that is guaranteed to work would be great.


texts: Moving websites saved to the iPad Home screen to Safari bookmarks on Mac

texts:
Context: My dad (not the best with tech) saved a lot of websites to the home screen of his iPad 2 (running iOS 9.3.5). He now has a MacBook Pro (new, running macOS 10.13 High Sierra), and I was tasked with trying to find a way to move those sites he saved back into bookmarks.

This answer didn't help at all, but I think my question was the same:

Export iPad home screen bookmarks/Safari bookmarks to PC/Mac

Can I transfer these sites to bookmarks, or is all hope lost?


texts: In an AppleScript, how do I call/reuse a subroutine from another AppleScript?

texts:
snippet 1a

on removeText(searchText, sourceText)
set prevTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to searchText
set sourceText to text items of sourceText

set text item delimiters of AppleScript to ""
set sourceText to "" & sourceText
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to prevTIDs

return sourceText
end removeText

snippet 2a

on removeText(searchText, sourceText)
set prevTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to searchText
set sourceText to text items of sourceText

set text item delimiters of AppleScript to ""
set sourceText to "" & sourceText
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to prevTIDs

return sourceText
end removeText

set theSentence to "I love Windows and I will always love Windows."
set theSentence to removeText("Windows", theSentence)

I found this subroutine (snippet 1a) is handy in snippet 2a and want to reuse it by calling its name. I googled for howto. Then I saved snippet 1a as /Users/henry/Library/Script\ Libraries/text.scpt and in snippet 2a I replaced

snippet 1b

on removeText(searchText, sourceText)
set prevTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to searchText
set sourceText to text items of sourceText

set text item delimiters of AppleScript to ""
set sourceText to "" & sourceText
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to prevTIDs

return sourceText
end removeText

with

snippet 3

use script "text"

and got snippet 2b and then I ran snippet 2b, but I got an error saying «script» doesn’t understand the “removeText” message.

Reference: "use statement" (refer to the part found by searching use script "Happy Fun Ball" in https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/applescript/conceptual/applescriptlangguide/reference/ASLR_control_statements.html)

So I went back to google and found one suggesting I should save snippet 1a as "a script application".

Reference 2: at the bottom of https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/applescript/conceptual/applescriptlangguide/conceptual/ASLR_about_handlers.html

In that one's example, it's

snippet 4

tell application "NonStayOpen"
launch
stringTest("Some example text.")
end tell

so I exported snippet 1a as /Users/henry/Library/Script\ Libraries/text.app and wrote snippet 2c

snippet 2c

tell application "text"
launch
set theSentence to "I love Windows and I will always love Windows."
set theSentence to removeText("Windows", theSentence)
end tell

Then I ran it and got an error {} doesn't match the parameters {searchText,
sourceText} for removeText.

Afterwards, I have tried firstly to append removeText(searchText, sourceText) to snippet 1a (getting snippet 1c) and exported it to replace /Users/henry/Library/Script\ Libraries/text.app but got an error when running, failed;

secondly to replace removeText(searchText, sourceText) with removeText() in snippet 1a (getting snippet 1d) and exported it to replace /Users/henry/Library/Script\ Libraries/text.app but got an error when running, failed.

In snippet 2a, how do I call/reuse a subroutine (snippet 1a) from another AppleScript or "script application" (see Reference 2)?


texts: Macbook Pro Mid 2010 not powering up after smc update

texts: Macbook Pro Mid 2010 after SMC update 1.7 shuts down and now by pressing power button front light turning on for a few seconds, optical drive makes it's usual noise but no activity on monitor happens and it's not powering up. Battery and Charger are working fine also resetting the SMC is not helping.


texts: How can I create a new macOS user using a pre-existing home directory?

texts:
I had some issues on my machine and had to reinstall macOS High Sierra from the recovery partition. Not sure if the setup didn't complete, or maybe it just didn't work as I expected, but I ended up at a login screen with no users on the machine. So I set a password for root from single user mode and then logged into Finder as root, and now I'd like to re-create my previous user from the existing home directory.

So on this machine there's still a /Users/username folder with all my stuff I want to use. If I simply make a new user called username and point it to that folder, will it work or will it erase that directory? Should I make a user with a different name, and then simply copy the contents over while (logged out of the new user, from a root terminal), or make a new user and then change the home directory to it? Maybe something involving the dscl utility?

As long as I can preserve all the user-installed applications, settings, keychain, etc., I'm happy.


texts: Can't connect to SMB share between two current 10.9.x machines not connected to the internet

texts:
In two instances I have have a number of Mac Minis and iMacs that were not connected to the Internet but a local isolated LAN have their SMB:// shares refuse to connect, though they worked days or weeks before with no configuration changes.

After some testing I found that AFP:// and CIFS:// connections still worked using the same username and password as the non working SMB connections.

Since 10.9.x uses SMB by default now I wanted to figure out what was causing the issue instead of switching to AFP or CIFS as many have suggested.


texts: Can I not share external hard drives through my Macbook's standard file sharing system?

texts:
I'm trying to share an external hard drive through lan file sharing (SMB). The sharing works for folders and file in my Macbook. I have set up a “Sharing” account that I give access to the files I want to share.

The problem is that the “plus” button to add a user with access to that folder is greyed out when I select the hard drives, so I cannot add my file sharing account. And the users that already have access cannot be edited, they're also greyed out, as is the minus button. Basically I cannot edit anything.

I have also tried using my administrator account since that one is already added to the folder's users with access list, but I cannot make SMB work with that account.

The hard drives are in ExFat and Fat32 formats. I know I can share them through my WiFi router, but I need to share them through my Macbook.

I tried adding my Sharing account to the Permissions box on the Get Info dialogue, but PathFinder didn't let me save the changes (it didn't give me a reason), and Finder just says that “You can read and write” but doesn't show me any other options to add, subtract, edit or see other users with access.

I don't know if this is a sharing issue, a permissions issue or both.

So, is sharing an external hard drive possible? If so, what am I missing?


texts: Upgraded Yosemite version and it keeps showing busy cursor

texts: As Apple suggests I updated my OS and after restart it seems to get slow as it keeps showing busy cursor. Caps lock working properly. I just can't use cursor to select anything. How can I sort this out or how do I revert to old version? My old version was 10.10.2 and now .5


texts: Accuracy of Apple Watch Heart Rate Sensor?

texts:
I own an Apple watch series 2 and I've recorded my heart rate during sleep for a week now. Twice during this period my heart rate during sleep shot up to around 110 for 1.5 to 2 hours and that seems very suspicious to me.
Since I don't have any sleep problems (that i know of) I was wondering whether this was an inaccuracy of the heart rate sensor.
So I wanted to know whether there is some consistent way to trick the sensor into recording double the actual heart rate (e.g. by pressing the watch against the wrist or something).


texts: Mail.app folders + iPhone/iPad = missing emails?

texts: I have a specific mail setup on my mac where I use Mail.app to access my Gmail via IMAP, and the app filters emails into folders ("On my mac" as opposed to in Gmail itself) for my different projects, school, etc. The problem is that whenever Mail.app moves an email into a folder (out of the main Inbox), it gets put in the Gmail Archive (All Mail), and then is no longer accessible via my iPhone - i.e. when I search for it, it's not there. Is there a way to make emails in folders available on iPhone/iPad, preferably actually synced with the device so you have the real folders from Mail.app available?


texts: Extreme lag when opening folders, new tabs, dragging/minimizing any windows. and clicking on any text box

texts:
When I use Finder, whenever I open or close a folder, even if it just has a single text file inside, my computer completely freezes for 30 seconds to one minute.  In addition, whenever I click the green button to unfullscreen a fullscreen application, my computer lags for 5-10 minutes, and does so again if I try to drag the application.  The computer also lags for a minute  when closing any application.

A possibly related issue is less extreme lag when clicking on any text field, regardless of if its in a chrome browser or part of the OS.  Even clicking on the title and body sections when asking this question induced 15 second freezes each.  This text lag affects the login screen.

My computer can still run KSP and Minecraft easily, so I don't think its a CPU problem (though my computer lags if I click on a text field in those games).

Additionally, the first tab, be it in Safari or Chrome, that I open after each midnight takes 5-10 minutes to open.

Restarting and resetting NVRAM has no effect.


texts: How to logout from iCloud without password? and without resetting

texts:
I have an iPhone 6 Plus, and the previous owner forgot to sign out his iCloud account.
What should I do? Can I reset this? It may upgrade into the latest ios which will make the phone crash, and I am afraid it might downgrade to iOS 9.


texts: Why are so many Mac downloads a .dmg just that contains a single .pkg?

texts:
I've noticed that many downloads are a dmg (disk image) that contains a single pkg file (installation package). Usually the pkg seems to be already compressed since the dmg doesn't reduce the file size much if any.

Example:

MonoFramework-MDK-2.10.6_1.macos10.xamarin.x86.dmg is 119,242,061 bytes (119.2 MB on disk)
MonoFramework-MDK-2.10.6_1.macos10.xamarin.x86.pkg is 119,979,719 bytes (120 MB on disk)

A savings of 737,658 bytes, or 0.6% of the original file size.

Is there a reason not to just distribute the pkg? Is the 0.6% compression savings that important? Or is it just the way things have always been done on the Mac?

(Yes, I realize that 737,658 bytes times all the millions of downloads that dmg gets does add up, but it just always seems annoying to have that extra steps in there to mount a dmg, run the installer and then unmount the dmg. Maybe a better question is "why doesn't Mac OS X recognize a dmg with a single pkg inside it as just a pkg and simply install it without requiring all that mounting and unmounting?")


texts: Is there a workaround when Finder spends forever "calculating size"?

texts: Has anyone else had the issue of it taking forever to calculate the size of a folder? I have a folder of about 500 GB on an external USB drive, and it seems to never finish "Calculating Size" when I click on "Get Info," so I have no idea how to find out the exact size. Does anyone know of a workaround or how to prevent this?


texts: Add a persistent message to iPhone main lock screen

texts:
I am looking for ways to have a permanent custom message/note on the primary lock screen on iOS 10+

Have tried Lock Screen Note which does it via push notification, but problem is that as soon as I unlock the screen, the notification disappears and I have to re-activate the message in order to have it again.

Any other suggestions? I've seen it work with Norwegian app, that you have a constant message on the screen within a time span before your flight, and I would like to do the same for custom notes.

Note I cannot jailbreak my device


texts: Why is my ac wifi signal weaker than my b/g/n; does it matter?

texts:
I have a new AirPort Extreme and a mid-2014 MacBook Pro. Both devices are 802.11ac but (according to iStumbler) my ac signal is weaker than my b/g/n signal (no matter where I move my antenna).

Why is my ac signal is weaker than my b/g/n signal? Does that mean that my (brand new) MBP is performing worse than a b/g/n machine would?


texts:
Recently after quitting Preview, I have a few windows from Preview that remain open, and provide no normal way to close them (Cmd-W does't work, and the close button is disabled). The only thing I can do with the windows is minimize them. Restarting Preview has no effect.

How do I force lingering Preview windows to close?


texts: terminal aborts when process finishes running with non-zero return value

texts:
My terminal is aborting when it encounters CTRL-Z:

Last login: Thu Aug 13 11:13:51 on ttys000
mymac:~ snowch$ sleep 10
^Z
[1]+  Stopped                 sleep 10

[Process completed]

Sometimes I don't see the [Process completed] message - the terminal just closes.  Also, it doesn't seem to matter what command is running.  The same behavior happens with vim.

I also get the same behavior with iTerm2.

This behavior started happening out of the blue.

Any idea what is going wrong?

--Update--

I just tried entering the sleep command again, this time I forgot the time parameter:

mymac snowch$ sleep
usage: sleep seconds

[Process completed]

The terminal has interpreted this exit value as meaning that the process has finished.


texts: Console + iMac 27" 2011 External Display

texts:
Can i use the iMac 27" mid 2011 as an external display for, let's say, a Playstation 3?

Is this possible for the latest iMac?


texts: How to secure my Mac again after years of downloading pirated software?

texts:
I'm trying to be more privacy aware now by using free software instead of pirating paid ones (GIMP and DaVinci Resolve instead of pirated copies of Adobe Photoshop and Premiere etc.).

For years I've been downloading pirated and cracked software and giving them permissions to do whatever they want on my MacBook Pro.

I have now uninstalled all those software, but I feel that it's not enough. I gave so many permissions that I wouldn't be surprised if some malicious files or code were still active on my MacBook.

What can I do to fix that?


texts: How can I easily specify an or-search in Finder?

texts:
I wanted to create a smart-search for my R-files, including both files ending in ".r" and ".rmd". Obviously, files can't end in both.

This yields only files that satisfy both criteria

This yields no files because the criteria are mutually exclusive.

How can I search for files ending in either .r or .rmd and more generally
how can I specify "or"-searches/ disjunctions? Using "or" or "||" didn't do the trick.


texts: Photo taken without geotag on iPhone Xs despite Location services and wifi being on

texts: Some photos taken with my iPhone Xs have geotags above the images, and some do not. These photos were all taken in the same location, with the same wifi. I never turned off "location services" for the camera. Why could this be happening?


texts: Can I retrieve Apple TV purchases made on my spouse's account?

texts: Can I retrieve Apple TV purchases made on my wife's iTunes-store account?


texts:
Need to launch Mac OS 9 but it says it is no longer supported, is there a way around that? I am trying to put it and an old version of QuarkXpress on an old 40 GB external hard drive.  I need access to both to open up some old important files.

What are my options?


texts: How to delete events on iPad Calendar.app

texts: I have been able to add events on my iPad calendar but I don't see how I can delete an event.


texts: What is the difference between a `service-name` and a `service-target`?

texts:
Consider the following commands

# launchctl stop
Usage: launchctl stop <service-name>
# launchctl stop com.apple.SomeService
# launchctl disable com.apple.SomeService
Usage: launchctl disable <service-target>

What is the difference between a service-target and a service-name? How can I learn a service-target of a service from it's service-name?


texts:
My iPad Air died a couple of days ago, I recorded its last dying breath >>
Youtube
Before it crashed for good my daughter was playing a disney game in Safari when she told me the screen turned blue than black. So I thought the battery was dead and plugged it in to not get it going again.
Later that day I tried al button combinations also plugged in (and out) of my macbook to get it going again. To no avail.
What would be the next best step?

Disassemble / reassemble
Send it of to Apple (is this expensive?)
Option 3?

Model A1474 (FCC ID BCGA1474 IC 579C A1472)
update
I've brought the device to a Apple certified service provider and they noticed the iPad was almost 2 years old and could be eligible for guaranty. They (Apple) replaced the device at zero cost!


texts: Why sh -c 'echo -n 1' is different from bash -c 'echo -n 1'

texts:
I am on a Mac Book Air, OSX 10.8.

I am trying to understand why these two snippets do not print the same output.
sh -c 'echo -n 1' outputs -n 1 whereas
bash -c 'echo -n 1' outputs 1 as expected.

Could you help me explaining why and how to make them output the same (if at all possible)?


texts: Why does Chrome have much better performance in rendering 3D graphics than Safari?

texts:
I used the models in this website to test the performance of my computer to render 3D graphics, and I found that dragging a 3D model is very choppy in Safari, while in Chrome it’s much more fluid. I know little about how a computer works, but I’m curious about the reason for this difference.

Device information: MacBook Pro 15" Retina, 2015

macOS version: 10.13.1

Edits:
It turns out that the low performance of Safari in rendering 3D graphics has to do with the computer not being shut down for a long time. And suggested by Jake3231 in the comments, I used EtreCheck to check my computer. Here is the report:


texts:
My 2013 iMac was recalled by the factory for some issue with the drive. The drive was changed and I started afresh - I thought. It turns out that I was running some schedule on Time Machine which updated every time there was a change in file parameters. Which means always. One adviser suggests that this old script has been transported onto the new drive, but now I can't get to it to stop it. I do not run Time Machine and make all my back-ups by another program.

Does anyone have any idea if anything can be done to fix it?


texts: Removing randomwhere, malware(leadingsignsearch) from [Security & Privacy] - [Full Disk Access]

texts:
I know I should have cautioned when I first download unwarranted stuffs, but things happen.

Removing them from /Library/LaunchDaemons or settings of each browsers, anything manually are done. Profile cleared, but from this particular section:

- at the bottom of the right window will not work. It will not respond to the mouse click. As you can see, I have already unlocked.

Please someone let me know. I need these eradicated.


texts:
Hi is there anyway to play RTSP on OSX El Capitan ?
the link in windows play fine in Windows Media Player & Real Player.

on OSX , I tried VLC , Quicktime , MplayerX and I can't get it to work
I tried playing with settings in VLC to make it work but it didn't
please help it's really anonying to have to go to windows everytime just to play the the RTSP link


texts: Closing your Apple Activity rings when watch is being repaired (and unpaired from iPhone)

texts:
Is there any way to be able to have Activity data tracked on the Activity app when you have had to unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone so it can be repaired?
Using a third-party app to create a workout works when your Apple Watch is paired with your iPhone but not when it has been unpaired.
Is there really no wan to do this?


texts: Wi-Fi Calling over Ethernet in Airplane Mode

texts: Does WiFi-Calling over Ethernet (with a compatible Ethernet-Adapter) work on iPhones with airplane mode enabled and no WiFi connection? I am using iOS 14.


texts: Total screen freeze in El Capitan, but audio keeps playing

texts:
Lately I've been having lots of issues with my Mac randomly freezing. As in, multiple times per week. These are the symptoms:

My screen freezes completely. The picture stays on screen and my computer doesn't respond to mouse or keyboard input.
If I have audio playing in the background, sometimes it will keep playing.
The Force Quit hotkey doesn't seem to do anything.
The only way out I've found so far is to force my computer off by holding Power.

How do I diagnose and fix the underlying issue?

Additional info

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015)
4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
27.34 GB free disk space (SSD)
Running apps when I notice this: Safari, Mail (there are others, but I'm not sure if they're running every time it happens so I didn't include them)
Activity Monitor screenshot: I can't, because I never know when the system is about to freeze up

As advised in the comments, I've disabled 'Allow WebGL' for now and I'll continue monitoring the situation.


texts:
I just recently learned that Photos app has a quite a lot metadata for the images I have taken, try searching for "fruit", "book", "food", "baked", "bottle". As a feature this is pretty neat, it simplifies searching for past pictures much easier. In addition to this the logic can detect people from pictures and even identify them.

However I am concerned about the privacy factor. I have not enabled iCloud Photos sharing. Yet when I take new photo of an apple in Airplane mode, the search finds it as "fruit" only after I have enabled Internet access again. This means that Apple is sending my images (or some derivates of them) to their servers to be processed.

I haven't found any source that explain exactly what happens there, so I can only guess.

Does Apple really send photos to their servers or am I doing something wrong?


texts:
How do I properly "eject" a thumb drive? I just uploaded about 26 hours of shows off of 12 thumb drives onto iTunes. Went to FILE, add to library, then when done loading, go to CONTROLS and hit eject, then remove drive. EVERY time it says failed to eject properly and shows the date of show, etc. What am I doing wrong?

New Macbook running latest version of iTunes.


texts:
I had just installed new SSD on main bay and move HDD instead of SuperDrive on my 2011 MBP. All works perfectly but Time Machine. It freezes entire mac when I trying open Options on Time machine preferences pane. I already removed old time machine config but its doesnt help me..

Any suggestions? Thank you.

UPD: also it freezes on iTunes launch... Maybe its cuz of symlinks beetween HDD and SSD? I will try and reply soon.

UPD2: no it is not a symbolic links.


texts: mDNSResponder question - what is it doing in this specific case?

texts:
I noticed that the mDNSResponder process on my machine accepted an incoming connection from the name given to my machine in relation to sharing capabilities (xxx's-MacBook-Pro.local) on port 53. Despite reading about the Wikipedia article on Bonjour, I still don't really understand what it specifically does.

In this case, was mDNSResponder trying to see what sharing capabilities were enabled on my machine?


texts: macOS + Windows 10 + shared data partition

texts: How can I setup my Mac with three partitions, one with macOS, one with Windows 10, and one data partition that can be used by both macOS and Windows?


texts: How to transfer internet audio streams to ipad?

texts:
I opened all my internet audio streams in iTunes and copied all of them into an iTunes playlist.

I would like to sync this playlist with the one on my iPad iTunes but I can't. When I select my iPad from iTunes this playlist is missing from the playlists.


texts: On OS X Lion 10.7.4 in Terminal.app I cannot type `C-M-@` or `C-M-%`, why?

texts:
On my MacBook Pro running OS X Lion 10.7.4, there seems to be a keyboard issue. I first noticed this problem when I tried to use the default keybinding to execute mark-sexp and query-replace-regexp in emacs, which are bound respectively to C-M-@ and C-M-% by default. As I use emacs a lot, I really miss these two powerful features a lot.

As I don't have experience dealing with terminal types etc, I did some simple debugging within emacs:

C-M-f and C-M-b work as expected. So control and option work well together.
M-%, M-< and M-> work as expected. So option and shift work well together.
C-S-backspace does not work. (But I've never tried this command before; the first time I ran it was today when I found it in the emacs manual.) But C-@ works as expected. So control and shift probably work well together.
If I am not mistaken, the command digit-argument is bound to C-9, C-8, etc. These keys do not work as well. I have made sure that in System Preferences.app I have turned off these keys for switching spaces.

In Terminal.app preferences, I have selected "use option as meta key" as it eases typing the emacs keybindings. I also tried to disable this option and use ESC but still to no avail. Any ideas?

P.S. I launched X11.app and in the xterm window I started emacs. Using ESC as meta, C-M-% and C-M-@ work perfectly. In the Cocoa version of Emacs, these two work perfectly as well. So I guess it is a Terminal.app bug or probably there might be a setting or configuration switch I can tweak to make this work in Terminal.app?

And here is the output of stty -a from emacs shell, hopefully it's useful...

bash-3.2$ stty -a
speed 9600 baud; 0 rows; 0 columns;
lflags: icanon isig iexten -echo echoe -echok echoke -echonl echoctl
    -echoprt -altwerase -noflsh -tostop -flusho -pendin -nokerninfo
    -extproc
iflags: -istrip icrnl -inlcr -igncr ixon -ixoff ixany imaxbel -iutf8
    -ignbrk brkint -inpck -ignpar -parmrk
oflags: opost -onlcr -oxtabs -onocr -onlret
cflags: cread cs8 -parenb -parodd hupcl -clocal -cstopb -crtscts -dsrflow
    -dtrflow -mdmbuf
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
    eol2 = <undef>; erase = <undef>; intr = ^C; kill = <undef>;
    lnext = ^V; min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q;
    status = ^T; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;
bash-3.2$

The same command directly from the shell:

$ stty -a
speed 9600 baud; 24 rows; 80 columns;
lflags: icanon isig iexten echo echoe -echok echoke -echonl echoctl
    -echoprt -altwerase -noflsh -tostop -flusho pendin -nokerninfo
    -extproc
iflags: -istrip icrnl -inlcr -igncr ixon -ixoff ixany imaxbel iutf8
    -ignbrk brkint -inpck -ignpar -parmrk
oflags: opost onlcr -oxtabs -onocr -onlret
cflags: cread cs8 -parenb -parodd hupcl -clocal -cstopb -crtscts -dsrflow
    -dtrflow -mdmbuf
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
    eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^?; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
    min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = ^T;
    stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;
$

(Side-comment: It seems strange that the syntax for a code block is four preceding spaces. Are all StackExchange users expected to know how to use paste(1), sed(1) or rectangle edits?)


texts: Opera fullscreen window is resized when macOS top menu bar is shown

texts:
I guess the post title is pretty explicit, but I add two little GIFs links to illustrate the problem I'm encountering.
This is quite annoying since it causes visual disruptance.

On Safari, Firefox or Chrome, the top menu bar is overlapping the software window, without resizing it. I should note that I also encountered this issue on the new Edge Dev (Chromium), so I suspect it might be a Chromium issue and I really wonder what causes this because on a friend's MacBook Pro, it doesn't happen.

Resize behavior (Opera / Edge chromium) : https://s5.gifyu.com/images/Hnet.com-image.gif

Expected behavior (Firefox / Safari / Chrome...) : https://s5.gifyu.com/images/firefox.gif

Does anyone have an idea on this ?


texts: What does a family do for charging and storage of multiple Apple devices?

texts: What does a family with multiple devices do for charging and storage of a growing number of devices.  We now have 4 laptops 5 iPads and 5 iPhones plus several other iPods. Are there any cabinets designed for the home that can charge and house this many?  I am tired of the cords and devices laying all over my house.


texts: "Compress item" inside Time Machine backup

texts:
Trying to compress (by right-click + "Compress item") an item inside a Time Machine drive's /Volumes/drive_name/mac_name/Latest folder will put the resulting .zip file on /Users/user_name/Desktop on the host computer.

This of course does not happen with other external drives not used as Time Machine backups.

Why does this happen? And how does it work, under the hood, the process of detecting that I'm trying to create a new compressed file in a Time Machine drive and of making a copy of the new compressed item to ~/Desktop?


texts: Enable all Safari extensions from Terminal

texts:
For various reasons that aren't important, whenever my MacBook reboots, Safari extensions are disabled. I can manually go into the Develop menu, and uncheck Disable Extensions, and that work just fine, but its annoying and an extra step that I have to remember.

I wrote a simple script that checks the output of defaults read com.apple.Safari ExtensionsEnabled

and if it is 0, runs defaults write com.apple.safari ExtensionsEnabled 1

This all works and it does indeed set that parameter to 1, but Safari does not actually enable my extensions, Develop - Disable Extensions remains checked, and my extension icons don't appear. Restarting Safari after running it does not help either.

So is there a cache I need to clear somewhere for Safari to re-read the plist and enable extensions?

I've also considered writing an applescript that would just simulate the human interaction, but the laptop is locked down and I can't add it to accessibilities due to no permissions, so that's a no-go.


texts: Apple Music offline files still there if subscription stops after free trial?

texts: I am now using the 3-month free trial of Apple Music. Yesterday, I downloaded a few albums into my iPhone. If I do not join the subscription after the free trial period, will the songs still be in my iPhone?


texts: iTunes not letting me restore iPhone 6+ from ipsw file?

texts:
The error message I get is "... could not be restored because the firmware is not compatible."

I have tried:

Reinstalling iTunes (yes, it's the newest version)
Rebooting both my laptop and iPhone multiple times
Putting my phone in DFU mode

I get the file from ipsw.me (iPhone7,1_9.3.3_13G34_Restore.ipsw)

iTunes DOES allow me to update my phone to the newest iOS, but I don't want that version - I want 9.3.3

I am out of ideas. Anyone have any? Thanks for any and all help.

Also: currently on iOS 9.0.2 (jailbroken)

UPDATE: According to ipsw.me Apple is still signing the old firmware (9.3.3 and 9.3.2 (https://ipsw.me/signed). So this mustn't be an issue.


texts: How to create a pkg installer with a custom action?

texts: I have created pkg bundle with pkgbuild & productbuild and I want to get the IP address from the User and that should be passed to postinstall script to write it in a specific file. I don't see any reference to do that. Can any one help me on this.


texts: iMac Boot Camp: No bootable device error when installing Windows 7

texts:
System: iMac (21.5 inch, Mid 2010)
OS: Yosemite 10.10.5

I used Boot Camp  Assistant to create a bootable USB for a Windows install (I have a Windows 7 ISO image through school) and a partition, but when I try to boot into the partition and I get an error - cannot find any bootable device. It does not recognize the USB as bootable. I tried with USB 2.0 as well as 3.0 with no change.

When I hold down the option key while rebooting, it shows the USB as "EFI Boot" but clicking on it leads to the same error message.

Any idea why this happens/how I can fix it?


texts: Add bookmarks to bookmarks bar via policy

texts:
I am capable of adding bookmarks to a "managed bookmarks" folder with the following code and deploy that via a policy.  But to make things easier on the younger students, I would like to deploy bookmarks instead to the bookmarks bar.

<key>BookmarkBar</key>
        <array>
            <dict>
                <key>name</key>
                <string>Google HomePage</string>
                <key>url</key>
                <string>http://www.google.com</string>
            </dict>
        </array>
    </dict>
    <key>BookmarkBarEnabled</key>
        <true/>

How can this be done?


texts: How can I prevent a user to use admin rights to work around restrictions?

texts:
We just bought my husband a new Mac.
Currently, we each have parental restrictions requiring a password on our accounts when it comes to "mature" ratings on our iPhones and iPads (older generations) This holds us accountable for each other and prevents inappropriate "adult" material from being viewed:downloaded on our machines and causing issues in our marriage.
However, with the new MacBook Air that we purchased, he is the administrator because it is his computer. We noticed you can't set up parental controls as the administrator. Is this correct?

If he were to set up another account as a guest, could he still use his iCloud under that setting? Could we lock the administrator account so that settings could not be changed?
Could someone set the password for "administrator" to something we don't know and have him use an account as a managed user under his Mac?

What is the best way to own the computer, be the primary user but also set self limitations?


texts: Prioritize iPhone when connecting August EP650 Bluetooth headphones?

texts:
Both my iPhone (6S+) and iPad (Pro 9.7") have been paired with my Bluetooth headphones (August EP650). When I power on my headphones, they always connect to the iPad... despite last being connected to the iPhone.

The iPhone is my primary listening device, so it becomes quite annoying to constantly connect the headphones manually.

How can I prioritize the connection to my iPhone?

To be clear, I still use the headphones on the iPad... just not as often… so I'd rather not forget the headphones on the iPad or disable Bluetooth.


texts: Is there a timeline for Siri location features to be brought to Canada?

texts: Currently, the location features for Siri don't work in Canada. Is there a timeline for that being rolled out, or is there any way to get around it?


texts: What is the best way to set up Google mail, contacts and calendar? (consolidated)

texts:
I'm trying to understand what the best way to set up Google mail, contacts and calendars on my iPhone and iPad. There seems to be plenty of options, all of which have downsides spread over lots of different postings and websites.

Here are the key issues I've found so far consolidated into one place:

Google mail

Exchange: Drafts don't synchronise. Searching for old emails doesn't always work. Google have announced that Exchange ActiveSync support will no longer be available for non-business accounts after 30th January 2013.
Gmail: No support for push email.
Gmail app: Cannot swipe messages in the inbox to delete them (only archive supported), notifications of new email sometimes open up the wrong email, mobile phone numbers aren't clickable, selecting an email address in any other app will not open Gmail to send a message (this is an iOS restriction), no custom alert sounds for certain contacts/groups and only a limited number of emails are readable if you have no data connection.

Calendar

Exchange: Additional newlines sometimes end up in the description of appointments. Google have announced that Exchange ActiveSync support will no longer be available for non-business accounts after 30th January 2013.
Gmail: Additional subscribed calendars aren't displayed.
CalDav: Birthday events in a subscribed calendar that has been hidden from view in the calendar app still show up in the Notification Center. Subscribed calendars in Google Calendar will always trigger an alarm on iOS (based on your default alert times) even though Google reports that none are set up. Changing an alert time will after a short while cause you to end up with two alerts on an appointment within iOS, one at the new alert time you wanted and one at the default alert time.

Contacts:

Exchange: Not all fields (including pictures) are synchronized. Some address fields end up getting swapped (eg. town is displayed above the first line of the address). Google have announced that Exchange ActiveSync support will no longer be available for non-business accounts after 30th January 2013.
Gmail: Not possible.
CardDAV: Now recommended by Google as the preferred method. Will sync more than 3 email addresses. Syncs in both directions. No support for push. Contact group syncing is not supported. See related question.

Is this correct? Is there anything else missing?


texts: Mass remove character from file names and folder names

texts:
We have created a lot folders and files that contains the "<" character.

Is it possible to mass-remove these characters?


texts:
I'd really like to draw more on my iPad but I like to rest my hand on the screen doing so, which registers as a stroke along with the pen.

I've been looking around for a proper gadget for this problem, some kind of drawing glove for the iPad, but haven't found any.

I tried a couple of gloves myself but they're either too thick (clumsy) or too thin (hand registers with screen).

Anyone here drawing frequently on the iPad with a good DIY glove suggestion or link to a product?


texts: What screen capture apps for OS X exist as alternatives to Fraps?

texts:
What is the best alternative to Fraps for the Mac?

What should it do:

In-game screen capture.
Record audio from both microphone and system audio at the same time
Fast
(Optional) Video compression.
(Optional) Ability to display framerate (FPS)


texts:
Is there a way create a precisely timed Custom Vibration in iOS 13 or later?

Additionally, is it possible to make the vibration short enough to mimic the 3D Touch haptic feedback on devices with the Taptic Engine? Do Custom Vibrations even use the Taptic Engine APIs and subsequently is it even capable of that type of vibration?

Essentially I’m trying to mimic the “Synchronized” vibration style with my own custom Alert Tone. I’m pretty much willing to go as far as building a little Arduino motor if that’s really what it takes, but I would like to know if anyone else knows any solutions that don’t require me replacing my human finger with a well-timed machine finger, because I haven’t found any.


texts: Can I use 16 GB RAM with my MacBook Pro 7,1?

texts:
I just picked up 16GB of RAM for my MacBook Pro, running the newest OS X. According to the NewEgg reviews, it should work in it. However, once I boot up, it shows the Apple logo and, after a few seconds, the spinner just freezes.

If I boot into my Windows 7 partition, it lists 16GB as installed, and 15.7GB available. Why, then, is OS X not recognizing it?

I've tried each of the sticks themselves (1x8GB), and OS X still freezes. The RAM came as 2x8GB and are PC3-10600 @ 1333 MHz.

I've tried holding D as the computer boots, but it just gray screens for a while, then jumps to the Apple logo.

It seems to me that 16GB may not work, but why then does the same hardware, just Windows 7 successfully run?


texts: How do I find where an environmental variable got set?

texts:
I installed a program to try it out, and decided I didn't like it so I moved the app to the trash.

Today, in my shell, I noticed that there are a couple of PROGRAMNAME_BLAHBLAH environmental variables set.  I'd like to remove those, too.

I don't even have a .bashrc or .bash_login, so I grepped every file I could think of (~/.* ~/Library/* /Library/* /etc/*).  The only place these variables turned up was a file ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, so I removed it from there (Xcode can edit binary plists), but new shells still have these variables set.

What other files does Mac OS X 10.7's terminal/bash run on startup?  How might these variables get set?

Or is it something funny like "need to reboot after editing environment.plist"?


texts: Wanted: a way to change many keychain passwords simultaneously

texts:
Problem: employer uses a common account (username and password) for numerous logins within their domain, and requires frequent password changes. Keychain can't seem to figure out that e.g. any subdomain of myemployer.com should use the same login and password, let alone any IP address within the relevant address block - and in any case, there are a few hold out internal sites that use different logins. So I have a lot of keychain entries referring to the same account/password pair - plus more still referring to the same account with past generation passwords.

What I want is to select all keychain items with a given username and old password, and change them all to same user name and new password, rather than playing whackamole as first my email access fails, then all the internal sites, one after another.

Even arranging to see extra detail of all accounts at once would help, saving time manually selecting each one to see whether it's affected by the latest mass change.

I'll happily write code to do this, if there's an API but no pre-programmed tool. Preferably in python, C or almost any scripting language, but I'm annoyed enough to consider using a language I don't know well.

Can anyone point me at ways of solving this problem?


texts:
When trying to run a command:

pip uninstall virtualenv

it raises an error:

Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 122, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/uninstall.py", line 59, in run
    requirement_set.uninstall(auto_confirm=options.yes)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 1035, in uninstall
    req.uninstall(auto_confirm=auto_confirm)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 568, in uninstall
    for path in pip.wheel.uninstallation_paths(dist):
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/wheel.py", line 375, in unique
    for item in fn(*args, **kw):
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/wheel.py", line 393, in uninstallation_paths
    r = csv.reader(FakeFile(dist.get_metadata_lines('RECORD')))
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources.py", line 1369, in get_metadata_lines
    return yield_lines(self.get_metadata(name))
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources.py", line 1361, in get_metadata
    return self._get(self._fn(self.egg_info,name))
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.8_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources.py", line 1470, in _get
    stream = open(path, 'rb')
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/virtualenv-1.11.6.dist-info/RECORD'

Storing debug log for failure in /var/folders/qn/_rqylh917b33tgzrfm1wy79h0000gn/T/tmpFtrtEX

I have no clue how to fix it, it start to show when I was trying to uninstall packages. Does anyone know how to solve the issue?


texts: Unable to proceed Windows installation on Mac

texts:
I'm trying to install Windows on my Mac. I got 2017 Macbook Pro (2 thunderbolt 3 ports), A1708.

I have prepared my bootable drive (Windows 10, 1903). I am able to select a boot option (pressing option key on startup, and selecting EFI boot).

Upon entering the Windows installation, it shows the language selection screen as start of installation. However, built-in keyboard and mouse are not working so I can't proceed. Tried the same bootable drive on Macbook Air, and keyboard/mouse seems to be working fine.

Anyone experienced this problem? Hope you got suggestions! Thanks!


texts: Change Command Prompt - Variables are literal, and changes to .bashrc or .bash_profile not making a difference

texts:
Trying to change my command prompt in OS X 10.8 / Mountain Lion. Changes to ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile do not make any difference. Like:

export PS1="\W \$"

It defaults to the host name ("\h\%"). Even if I try to set PS1 in the terminal, it changes but displays the variables literally, as below:

ws10% PS1="\W \$"
\W $

(with ws10 being the host name)

My ~/.bashrc file:

export PS1="\W \$ "

Any ideas? I keep getting lost when I cd up and down the directory structure! Thanks a lot.


texts: MacBook discharging while plugged in under load

texts:
I have the latest Retina MacBook Pro MacBookPro11,2

I quite often have the CPU at about 400%-500% usage (e.g. 4-5 cores at 100%) and also do GPU intensive tasks. While this is happening, the battery can actually discharge even though it is plugged in. This has happened since I first got the MacBook and is not something which has developed over time.

I have the model without a dedicated GPU (Intel Iris Pro only), and I have an 85 watt power supply which came with the MacBook

This is very irritating for me, is this a fault or normal behaviour?


texts: What is com.apple.mail.plist and why was it slowing Mail down?

texts:
I fixed an annoying problem with Mail 6.2 (I'm on ML 1.8.2), where Mail was slow and a pain to use.  I am on a SSD so everything was jerky while typing, sending mail out, and it would take ~1 second to display the text of a message when I scrolled up/down the list.  On a HDD I presume the problem would have been much more bothersome.

I looked at Mail slow under ML/ Apple forum and someone mentioned to look in console for errors such as deny file-read-data /Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist, and to delete such plist in case.  I did have such message, so I went on to delete the file (and a file of the same name in ~/Library/Preferences/).  Now Mail works fine, no slowness, no jerkiness.  So the question is, what the hell is com.apple.mail.plist, what was doing in my laptop and why Mail seems to be much happier without it.

FYI my laptop had a install from scratch of ML + backup restored through Time Machine.  In addition I restarted Mail after deleting com.apple.mail.plist and all my personal defaults (font, how to display messages, etc) are all still there.


texts:
I have a MacBook Pro 13 Mid 2012 with 4 GB RAM. I want to upgrade it to a SSD drive. I have 2 questions:

Is it advisable to do that? Can someone who has done that give me some feedback from their experience?
Are there any helpful online resources/tutorials etc that you can recommend to do it?


texts: Customize Slack Notifications banner/alerts?

texts:
Is it possible to customize Slack new message notification banners so Reply button is displayed automatically (without having to click 'Options' > 'Reply'). I have searched already within System Preferences > Notifications without luck.
Note: Slack Notifications were working this way prior the Big Sur update.
I know this might sound trivial but it's currently driving me crazy. Any help appreciated!


texts: Is there a way to check why iPhone restarted? My iPhone restarted once during the day, not being connected to power, so I believe that wasn't update. It happened just once today, so I'm curious what was a reason to restart.


texts: How can I upgrade OS X.11 to OS X.12 when the App Store only offers OS X.13

texts:
I have a Mac running the latest version of OS 10.12. I need to upgrade this Mac to the latest version of OS 10.12. Although the hardware will support OS 10.13, for other, important reasons I am not able to perform an upgrade to 10.13 at this time.

I do not mind intermediate steps as necessary, such as upgrading to 10.12.0 and then updating to 10.12.latest.

Unfortunately, the App Store is only offering High Sierra. This is true both on the Update page and when I do a search in the App Store.

Without third-party tools, if possible, or if necessary then with minimal third-party tools and files, how can I upgrade this Mac to 10.12.latest  with the same outcome as though it had been upgraded through the App Store when 10.12 was still available?

Thanks.


texts: Mac 13inch 2020 model-M1chip- Lenovo USB C gen2 dock station--> Unable to connect dual monitors

texts:
I have Mac 2020 model, 13 inch & M1 chip model and using Lenovo Dock station- USB C model.
I am trying to connect my 2 external monitors, but after connection it is displaying duplicate on both the monitors.
I tried couple of options like with VGA cable, HDMI and other options, but still duplicate mirror is displaying.
Can any one suggest what is the work around to resolve this issue?


texts:
I have a US iTunes account and a friend - also from the US but currently in the UK - wants to send me an iTunes gift card.

My question is: can he buy this card valid for the US Store with his US credit card but from his UK location. Is this possible?

And will it be sent to me digitally as I am also not in the US right now.


texts: Is it possible to set a Custom quick look preview image in OS X?

texts: Is there any way to set a custom quick look image in OS X? I'd like a command line tool or applescript to change or embed a custom preview for a file using a jpeg.


texts: How to disable voice dictation on an iPhone 4S running iOS 5.1 or later?

texts:
When the keyboard is active on my iPhone 4S (running jailbroken iOS 5.1.1 / 6.1.1), there is a key between the space bar and the numeric entry toggle. This key has a microphone on it and tapping it opens voice dictation.

How do you prevent this key from showing up?

Note that the instructions at http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/04/turn-off-dictation-on-ipad-iphone/ do not work; the Keyboard menu does not contain a Dictation toggle.


texts: Why do these apps "like to access the microphone"?

texts:
The apps Google Maps and Waze request access to the microphone.

  Enable microphone access to play audio on bluetooth devices and more.

The explanation doesn't make sense to me. What does "play audio on bluetooth devices" have to do with the microphone? And what does "more" include?


texts: How does one lock down OS X Server using the PF firewall?

texts:
Assume I have ip blocks for China, Russia, North Korea etc. How would I configure pf to allow those IP addresses to only access ports 80 and 443, and be denied access to other ports?

I have an instance of OS X Server 2.1.1 (aka Mountain Lion) running in a data center with a static ip address exposed to the internet. So there is no hardware firewalls etc to protect the server against malicious users.

Looking through the logs, I noticed numerous failed attempts from countries like China, Russia to services necessary for me to remotely manage the server. Further, I noticed that ports were unnecessarily open to the internet.

Since OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server, I used the Server Admin to manage the firewall (ipfw).  This has been removed in OS X Server 2.1.1 (Mountain Lion). And to make matters more interesting, the Apple documentation states that ipfw is deprecated and to use pf instead. Having read the man page, I'm a tad lost how to configure pf.

Googling "pf firewall tutorial" reveals tutorials aimed for NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Further filtering on "OS X" in that query reveals tutorials for "OS X", but it seems the authors assume some prior knowledge.


texts: Macbook Pro - Turn off display with the lid open for High Sierra

texts:
What is the command line equivalent to do this for High Sierra? I'm referencing this thread here that had it working on Yosemite.

Turn off MacBook Pro's display while connected to external monitor on Yosemite

The following no longer works:

sudo nvram boot-args=niog=1


texts: How can I rip DVD subtitles to SRT format (or something else that iPads can understand)?

texts: Title says it all. I've used HandBrake, Subler, VideoMonkey, and RipIt. I'm familiar with mencoder. None of them seem to be able to rip the subtitles from a DVD and then get the soft subtitles to the iPad.


texts: Wireless mouse stopped working with monitor USB port

texts:
Setup:
* MacBook Pro 2017
* Mojave
* DELL U2717D Display
* Logitech unifying receiver and mouse m705

Mouse & receiver work have worked for a year. I upgraded to Mojave 2 weeks ago, and it has been working fine for the last two weeks.

Beginning today 10/7/18, mouse no longer works when the receiver is plugged into any port on monitor.

Mouse works when receiver is plugged into Mac with USB C adapter.

I checked USB ports on the monitor and they still work with other USB devices.

I checked with two different Logitech receivers and mice and neither worked.

I reinstalled the Logitech software and restarted.

Still doesn't work.

I'm stumped. Does anyone else have any ideas?


texts:
I'm in a hotel equipped with Apple TVs and I can see my neighbor's Apple TV on AirPlay. I cannot, however, see the Apple TV in my own room. I went through the Apple TV settings and performed the following steps:

Double checked the network: both my MacBook and the Apple TV are on the same wireless network with a strong signal.
Confirmed Apple TV configuration:

AirPlay On
Conference Room Display Off
Play from iTunes in the Cloud Off
Apple TV Name Apple TV 808
Security Off

Restarted the Apple TV via Settings > General > Restart

But I can still only see my neighbor's Apple TV in the AirPlay Selector on my MacBook:

What, if any, further debugging steps can I try?


texts: Devices sharing Apple IDs: what credentials can an user with an iPad PIN use?

texts:
I have several devices sharing the same Apple ID, one being an iPad (plus 2 iPhones, 2 Macs etc). I want to share my iPad PIN unlock code with others in my flat so they can use Spotify / control the Audio etc., but I don't want them to have access to anything else (e.g. my Apple account, my non-Apple email accounts).

Firstly, I don't believe there is any way (e.g. multiuser) way of me (e.g.) having my mail on there, and it not being available to anyone with the unlock code - correct?

Secondly, even if I delete my mail accounts, to what extent am I still in danger? Are secrets (e.g. passwords) shared between devices for Apps / Accounts? IE can people put them back without entering the password or restore the device to a state where it had the password? Can I stop the casual user deciding to buy lots of Apps? Is there a way to lock down the device less hammer-to-crack-a-nut than removing my Apple ID and all accounts or (e.g.) factory reset?


texts:
I would like to trigger a notification with AppleScript.

I have seen How can I trigger a Notification Center notification from an AppleScript or shell script? but I would like to have a native AppleScript solution if it exists.


texts: Safari downloads slow until download is restarted

texts:
Very frequently when I am downloading a file, I notice that it downloads very slowly on Safari. This occurs from just about any website I am downloading a file from. However, after a restart of the download (canceling and then restarting it), the download starts and resumes at full speed.

This has occurred to me on macOS High Sierra, and now occurs to me on macOS Mojave.

Is there any reason Safari does this? The only extension I have enabled is uBlock Origin.


texts:
What is the best technique for changing the backup location of one's iPhone to an external drive. It would seem that with small SSD's (256GB) and very large iOS devices (128GB) that Apple would easily enable this.

I found the below answer, but asking a non-techie friend to create a sym link is really not ideal.

http://ismashphone.com/2012/05/how-to-change-the-location-of-your-iphone-backup.html

  If you have any number of iOS devices, you likely back your stuff up
  onto your computer. Perhaps iCloud, but after a certain point, you may
  have so much stuff to back up that it’s best to just put it all on
  your computer than it is to pay for the additional iCloud storage.
  That’s especially the case if you have multiple iOS devices. You can
  save a lot of space on your drive if you have lots of iOS apps, etc.
  For instance, we were able to free up 100GB, no joke.

  OS X

  1) Make sure that iTunes is closed.

  2) You will now move your folder called ~/Library/Application
  Support/MobileSync/Backup/ to the drive you want to back up to. For
  instance, an external drive or secondary drive within your computer.
  Whichever works for you.

  3) Launch Terminal Applications/Utilities/Terminal and type in the
  following command line:

ln -s /Volumes/DriveName/Backup/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup

  In the above example, ‘DriveName’ would be the name of the new backup
  location.


texts: Why is my MacBook Pro already using swap memory?

texts: I have a late 2013 MacBook Pro 13" with 8 GB of memory. Lately my MacBook Pro uses swap memory, when it has enough free memory. Is this normal and can I do something about it? Also when I only have safari and let's say Xcode open it uses 99% of the RAM. Is this normal behavior?


texts: Using SD Card as external storage for Macbook Pro retina

texts:
I am getting a new Macbook Pro retina display with 256GB flash storage. The capacity may be a little bit too tight, but I should be able to manage it. I am considering to get a 128GB SD card as a secondary storage. I'd store files that I do not frequently use in the SD card. It would be less bulky than an external HDD.

I heard that different SD cards can perform very differently with the MBP, so was seeking some advice on which product has the best performance. Does anyone know what models of SD cards have the best read/write speed when used with a Macbook Pro (with or without retina)?


texts: Will Apple Music 3 month trial carry over if changing plans?

texts:
A Family linked account recently signed up to Apple Music for a 3 month free trial, but selected the Individual account option rather than Family, so only that single account has access to the trial.

I want to change the subscription to Family, but don't want it to see that as a purchase "now" and end the free trial.

Some Googling around this found me a Reddit question from 4 years ago (indicates it would carry over), but I'd rather not hang my hopes on old information.  Hopefully one of our members has a more recent experience with this.


texts: How to add Automator Folder Action from command line

texts:
Is there a way to add Folder Action to Automator tool from the command line?

When I typed Automator I get very basic CLI options (-D, -i, -v)..
Can someone please add an example of how to do it?


texts: Connecting Dell U3011 to retina MacBook Pro via mini DisplayPort

texts:
I am trying to hook up my Dell u3011 to my retina MacBook Pro using a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort connector, and finding myself a bit perplexed as to why it doesn't work. Basically the top resolution that Mac OS X allows on the external display is either 1080p or 1280x1024(scaled!), while monitor's native resolution is 2560x1600. I Googled around and people recommend using SwitchResX tool, to fix the issue, but I am curious if there is a way to force the correct resolution with native tools(cli or some obscure settings?).

Note: I am using OS X Mountain Lion. The miniDisplayPort to DisplayPort connector is from Monoprice.


texts: Create Service to search websites (with query)?

texts:
I would like to create a Mac Service where I could search on some websites, from applications like Scrivener. For example (with "{query}" for where the word should be):

https://www.google.ca/search?q={query}&safe=strict&biw=1280&bih=636&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnysHu8NDPAhVEax4KHRwxB1AQ_AUICCgB

OR

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords={query}

I already have the URLs, like the websites above, but I just need to know how to create the service in Automator.


texts: exe file not found with which after setting the Path

texts:
I need to have an exe file found in the terminal with "which FILE" command. I set the PATH to this file but I cannot find the file with which?

I added

export PATH=$PATH:/Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/MSM_old/msm_mac

in ~/.zprofile. msm_mac is the binary.

When I type in which msm or msm_mac, the result is msm not found.

Current value of the PATH:

/Users/neurolab/opt/anaconda3/bin:/Users/neurolab/opt/anaconda3/condabin://Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/freesurfer/bin://Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/freesurfer/fsfast/bin://Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/freesurfer/tktools:/Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/fsl/bin://Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/freesurfer/mni/bin:/Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/fsl/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/spjder:/usr/local/munki:/opt/X11/bin:/Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/workbench/bin_macosx64i:/Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/MSM_old/msm_mac

I am using MBP 2019 with Catalina

What can I do?

Best,


texts: Jailbroken iPad enters safe mode while Wi-Fi syncing

texts:
When I arrive at my house, I manually start Wi-Fi Sync (Settings > General > iTunes Wi-Fi Sync > Sync Now) to back up my data. But sometimes my iPad crashes into Safe Mode during this process.

I looked through the error log (Settings > General > About > Diagnostics & Usage > Data > LatestCrash.plist) and it was constantly referring to libsystem_kernel.dylib, which is making me think that this might be caused by my tethered jailbreak.

Does anyone else have this problem, and does anyone know how to fix it?


texts: How to play a sound from the command line AND direct the output

texts:
I am aware of the afplay command to play an audio file. When I do that it plays through the current selected Sound Output. If I have my headphones in, it plays on the headphones. How can I specify that the sound plays over the Built-In Speakers?

In the Sounds System Preferences you can select the Alerts tab and direct the output of the Alert to a specific output. I am looking to do the same but with my own customs sounds triggered by the command line.


texts: Is Safari's "Close Tabs to the Right" a new feature released in macOS 10.15.4?

texts:
After updating to macOS Catalina 10.15.4, I've noticed a new Close Tabs to the Right option when right clicking a Safari tab:

I'm not 100% sure if this came with the 10.15.4 update thought, since the release notes don't actually say anything about this. When did this feature first appear?


texts: Create an iCloud account on my friend's iPhone

texts: I don't have an Apple device, but I'd like to try iCloud Mail on my PC. Can I create an iCloud account on my friend's iPhone, then sign out on his device and use the account on iCloud.com? If so, doesn't it erase his iPhone data or cause any problem whatsoever?


texts:
There is an old shared connection that I had setup to a PC to transfer files from the PC to the Mac and I cannot get rid of it.

Here is a shot of the message when I drag to the trash; control click give no trash option.


texts:
Does anyone know anyway to make the iTunes sync photos taken using camera on my phone  into my PC?

I've enabled the iTunes photo sync already but it isn't working.

Right now I'm accessing the photos in the My Computer and right click Import Pictures (or Explore) .


texts:
How do I change the default font size for reading the body of messages in Mail 14.0? I know that I can use ctrl ⌃ + +, but I want the reading pane to default the body of the message to a larger font without lowering the default resolution.
This is related to a previous question but the suggested methods no longer work.


texts:
I have tried using this code in the terminal to turn off the reply animation in Mail

defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true

It doesn't work for me. I turn off Mail, enter the above in terminal, press return, turn on mail. Same hideous distracting reply animation.

I have also checked at the application Tinker Tools--but there is no turn off Mail animation there that I can find.

Any help would be appreciated!


texts: I am about to get my fusion drive upgraded to a 256gb SSD on my Late-2012 21.5" iMac that I got from work (don't worry I have a company upgrading it, and yes they know its a Late-2012 iMac).  When that process is completed, it is my understanding that I will have two partitions.  The 256gb SSD that was installed, and a 128gb SSD left over from the fusion drive.  Can I RAID0 these together in a relatively reliable fashion? I understand the pitfalls of RAID0, and how if one drive fails they both go, but that is what Time Machine is for.  Has any had any experience with setting up this type of RAID on an iMac?


texts:
I have an iMac with this spec:

I have two external monitors, both 4k. Recently, Spaces has become almost unusably slow for me. Switching between spaces on the main display (usually between full-screen IntelliJ projects) using the trackpad is the laggiest. It will scroll a bit, pause for a second, then jerkily scroll the rest of the way. I think I managed to speed it up a little by removing files from my desktop, but that certainly hasn't fixed the problem.

If I open Spaces, then dragging them to rearrange them takes several attempts, because the drag usually fails to start (or at least takes longer than the 30 seconds or so I've tried waiting), and even hovering over different windows takes a couple of seconds before moving the blue highlight.

For some reason, things seem smoother on the external monitors, which only have about two applications each on them.

Most things, like dragging windows around and opening menus, happen just as smoothly as you'd expect them to.


texts:
Every time I disconnect my mac from its dock, I get a Finder notification about ejecting a drive before disconnecting. It's a drive I use for time machine backup, and I just don't think it's worth it to take the time to eject it every time I want to move my mac.
Is there a way to disable this notification? The Finder app does not appear in the Notification settings.


texts: Is the macbook retina's soldered RAM in any way faster than typical RAM?

texts: You would think it would make some kind of difference...


texts: Resized/Rotated PNG image using ImageMagic is blury. How to sharpen?

texts:
When I try to resize (shrink, in this case) and/or rotate a PNG file, it becomes very blurry.  Besides (obviously) not wanting a blurry image, it's actually critical because these are shipping labels with bar codes and the image is so bad, bar code readers actually have trouble with them.
The command that I am using is
% convert input_file.png -resize 288 -rotate -90 output_file.png

-resize 288 → resize to a width of 288 pixels (4 inches) keeping the aspect ratio.  288 is the number of pixels for a 72DPI (printing) resolution
-rotate -90 → rotates the whole image anti-clockwise 90°

The file that you get from eBay, USPS Click-n-Ship, or PayPal is a 4x6 inch label either in PNG or PDF.  I choose PNG since I need to rotate it as I'm using my laser printer with letter sized labels (Avery 8127).  I have to resize it because the PNG they provide is huge! Looking at the size in Preview, it's 17x25 inches.
I have researched this extensively, but the solutions I've found only marginally improve the sharpness of image.  The end result is that depending on the bar code reader it may or may not read it.  For example, I have two readers - a simple 2D Symbol bar code reader that more often than not will fail.  However, my more expensive Focus 3D reader will read it more often, but still sometimes fail.

Imagemagick converted image is blurry

ImageMagick v6 Examples -- Blurring and Sharpening Images

Blurry resized PNG. How do I keep the quality the image?

ImageMagick v6 Examples -- Resize or Scaling (General Techniques)
From this page

However, many filters (even the default filters) can blur images slightly. It is part of their nature. So normally this 'short-circuit' for a no-op resize a good thing.

None of these worked.
I was under the impression that if I make an image smaller, I wouldn't lose quality however, this doesn't seem to be the case. So, my question is, how can I resize this image so that I can retain the quality?


texts: macOS - Prevent same background image from showing on multiple Desktops?

texts:
I have set my desktop background image to automatically change every 30 minutes.

Most of the time, I have at least 3 Desktops/Spaces open on my MacBook; so sometimes I see the same image on 2 different Spaces.

Apart from increasing the number of images (which may decrease the likeliness of occurrence), what can I do to prevent the same image from being set as background on more than one Space?


texts: Is there a way to customize the color of visited links?

texts: I am an Apple user, and am currently using the Chrome and Vivaldi browsers. Not a computer programmer. Is there any easy way to make visited links stand out? The default color for those isn't defining enough for me, I would like the color to be more noticeable.


texts: Does the official OSX client for Twitter (the one available in the App Store) use https? I'm unable to find any info about this on the Twitter site and my searches aren't turning up much either.


texts: Can iBooks be synced from an iPad to a new computer to save my documents?

texts:
I formated my Mac after a few years of work and forgot to do books backup because iPad was lightly used. As a result all my books stuck on the iPad and if I want to add some new from a computer it wants to erase the existing books.

With iFile, I tried to copy books, but there are only folders, not epub files.

So is there any way to get them back or somehow combine with new iTunes library? In general I don't need those books readable on mac, just to restore and the ability to add new ones to the iPad.


texts:
Lately my iPhone 4s has been glitching a lot. The latest thing to not work is email. I try to load it and it says "Cannot Get Mail. The mail server 'imap.gmail.com' is not responding. Verify that you have entered the correct account info in mail settings". The thing is - is that I have entered the correct email address. What do I do?

Also - it lets me send emails, just not receive them


texts: How to copy video files from OS X to iPad over Wi-Fi?

texts:
I'd like to copy video files from my computer (OS X) to iPad over WLAN. I'd prefer simply share a folder on OS X and then be able to copy files from that folder when iPad is connected to the same WLAN.

What solutions there exists for this (apps, OS X native share)?

I have been using Dropbox, but it's too slow as it is round-tripping the file transfer through the internet connection, not the WLAN.

Videos are MP4 files, so they don't need to be converted.


texts: Deleting undated files from Time Machine

texts:
I just bought a new MacBook Pro with Lion.  I restored my files and apps from the MacBook with Snow Leopard, etc., from Time Machine.  All seemed to have uploaded correctly, but after using several weeks, I did find missing files . . . which I recovered by going back into Time Machine and simply uploading those files.  Recently, while attempting to back up my machine, I got an error message stating, "This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 467.34 GB but only 155.61 GB are available."   I realized that all the old data needed to go, except I wanted to save 3 backups from the old computer to ensure that I could recover the files, should I find others missing. Easy enough, I thought!  Wrong!

I opened Time Machine, navigated the window to the MacBook Pro setting, went back in time to select the date before which and including I wanted to delete the old files.  Much to my dismay, only files after February 12 were dated, the others were gray, contained no dates and were impossible to select.  So, now what?

Sadly, I could have avoided this, had I delete old data before I uploaded files to the new computer.  But, I'm afraid my learning curve runs behind my needs.  "Coulda, woulda, shoulda!"  So, now what?  Help, please!


texts: Transferring songs from iTunes to iPhone

texts:
I am new to iOS platform.
Recently, I have transferred around 150 songs from my mac to my iPhone, manually without syncing. But, what I see now all songs are added to recently added folder. Is there a way to categorize them  into albums?


texts: Force Safari 7 to open link in the current tab

texts:
Suppose I have a site with this code:

<!DOCTYPE html>

    1

    2

    3

but I do not want to open any new tabs or windows.
I know I can drag the link into the address bar to force open the link in the current tab instead of a new one, but it is too cumbersome.

Is there a more convenient way to do it, like keyboard shortcut or maybe an extension?


texts: How is the Compressed Mem column in Activity Monitor calculated?

texts:
Say we have something like

Process Name   Memory    Compressed Mem
Firefox        2.60 GB   1 GB

What do the figures mean?

Is it:

1GB is compressed and we don't know how much it's compressed by so the app is using somewhere between 1.6 and 2.6 GB but we don't know how much
1GB is the amount of memory saved by compression - ie the app is using 2.6 - 1 = 1.6 GB of actual memory
1GB is the actual memory being used - ie after taking into account the compression of parts of the 2.6GB, we've been able to save 1.6GB and the process looks like it's only using 1GB
Something else?

I intuitively thought it was (2) but a friend thought it might be (3). Now I'm thinking it's actually (1)!


texts: Connect to second Wifi network using dongle

texts:
I have a Macbook Pro running Yosemite (10.10.1) and an Asus wifi dongle.

I would like to connect to two wifi networks. One is a normal home/office/hotel/conference network with a connection to the outside internet, the other is a local internet with two other machines on it (a windows tablet and a PLC controller).

How do I do this?

(I can't even tell if the wifi dongle is being recognized, but it's supposed to support Mac. When I use it with the windows tablet, I get a "Wifi" and a "Wifi 2" option, and I just set each to different networks)


texts: Is there a file copy utility for OS X that's similar to TeraCopy for Windows?

texts:
On Windows, I use TeraCopy for improved file copying. Are there any similar equivalents for OS X?

In particular, I'd like to see things like copy speed.


texts: If I mess up the EFI System Partition, will Mac OS X be unbootable?

texts:
I forgot to make a backup of my EFI System Partition (ESP) and  have installed grub onto it.

If I happen to accidentally mess up the partition, will OS X be bootable? If not, how would I restore the EFI System Partition without having a backup?


texts: How to make the OS think a removable media drive is non-removable?

texts:
I'd like to be able to use a USB pen drive as if it's an internal drive - is this possible?

I saw some info about flipping the 'removable flag bit' of the drive using terminal command

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk2 bs=1 count=1

however, after trying with a number of 64 GB pen drives from different manufacturer I always get the message

Operation not permitted

I tried SUDO before the command (eek) but no difference.

Any other ways to do this, or perspectives to add?


texts: Adjust precision (Year, Month, Day, Time) of iCloud Photos EXIF metadata?

texts:
I'm importing a number of older non-iPhone photo collections into my iCloud Photos Library via the Photos app on my Mac. These were taken either on early digital cameras or are from scanned film.

In some cases, the photo EXIF data is correct and all of the original timestamps are imported into Photos correctly.

In other cases, either the EXIF data is obviously incorrect or the photograph's date is set as the Unix epoch timestamp of January 1st, 1970.

In many cases I know the Year and Month of the photo. In some cases I can deduce the correct date. In some older family photos I only know the year, or want to set a "circa" approximation.

Does iCloud photo library support any concept of date precision, where I can only set the known date parameters for a photo?

The Adjust Date and Time... feature seemingly does not allow me to delete date components or set only a certain level of date precision.


texts: AD users are unable to log into web server on Yosemite server

texts:
Active Directory Domain accounts unable to access the web server hosted on the Yosemite server. Local users can authenticate. I cannot find a setting to enable the Web services. I feel there is a setting to enable the website to recognize the AD users or AD user groups or Local groups with AD users.

The Yosemite is joined to the AD domain and the domain users/groups are visible.


texts: Is there anyway to fill up the boot screen on Touch Bar when booting up?

texts: I was wondering if there's a modification on Touch Bar when a MBP booting up e.g. putting up a JPG image before booting completed / login.


texts: How can I unlock an iPad 3 with an activation lock with an unknown Apple-ID

texts: Bought a a second hand ipad  from a yard sale the person had it set to  new installation. I looked at it before I bought it to make sure it powered up, and I got it home and connected to my laptop to start the process I found I i could not go any further be cause the ipad had been locked by another apple Id. When I went back to show the person they didn't know how that had happrned and they didn't recognize the apple Id and now they wont do anything to help try and reset it nor give back my money  and now i'm stuck with a locked Ipad and no money. What can I do now?


texts: Using a script to set the firmware password manually

texts:
First off, I am using macOS Mojave 10.14.6.

In this answer, it shows how one could manually set a firmware password in previous versions of OS X without any user input, excluding sudo, which is acceptable for my needs. (The answer itself uses user input, but one could simply use the setregproptool command by itself.

Here is my modified version of that code that I have updated for Mojave and tweaked to be used for my purposes.

#!/bin/sh
# Mounts the Recovery disk (to access the Security Utility application)
sudo diskutil mount Recovery & wait

# In the recovery disk, there are various folders based on the current version of macOS. I need the latest version.
# So, I read the list of folders into an array ordered such that the most-recently modified is first and use regex to get the folder separately from the other folder information.
IFS=$'\n' read -rd '' -a ADDR <<< "$(ls -ltud /Volumes/Recovery/*)"
latestRecovery="${ADDR[0]}"
latestRecovery=$(grep -oE "(\w+-)+\w+\/" <<< "$latestRecovery")

# Using this most up-to-date folder, I get the path of and load the corresponding BaseSystem.dmg file.
baseSystemPath="/Volumes/Recovery/${latestRecovery}BaseSystem.dmg"
hdiutil attach -quiet -nobrowse "$baseSystemPath" & wait

# Here, we attempt to change the firmware password.
sudo "/Volumes/macOS Base System/Applications/Utilities/Startup Security Utility.app/Contents/Resources/setregproptool" -m command -p <new-password> -o <old-password>

# Finally, we unmount the Recovery  disk
diskutil unmount force Recovery & wait

However, the execution of the setregproptool fails because, when loading BaseSystem.dmg and getting the path /Volumes/macOS Base System, this volume is loaded as a read-only file system.

So, my question would be answered by one of the following: a way to load BaseSystem.dmg as a readable and executable volume or an alternative way to change the macOS firmware password in a way that allows standard input. (e.g. somehow using firmwarepasswd that doesn't require user input apart from sudo.)

Update:

It seems that the problem with executing setregproptool is separate from the read-only disk since copying the "Startup Secuirty Utility.app" to my disk and attempting to execute the file still results in it failing.

By the way, the error it throws is as follows: sudo: unable to execute ./setregproptool: Operation not permitted

Another thing I tried just to get everything out of the way was to disable SIP. Also, just in case anyone suggests this, Terminal already has Full Disk Access.

Update 2:

After further questioning, It was found that I am unable to execute any binary on the macOS Base System volume, which may further contribute to the idea that the volume is being attached as a read-only volume.

Additionally, to add some more information, I do currently have a firmware password set.

Output of mount | grep Base: /dev/disk2s1 on /Volumes/macOS Base System (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners, quarantine, nobrowse, mounted by [redacted])


texts: Can it hurt to upgrade Windows 7 drivers?

texts:
I was running into issues playing Starcraft 2 on Windows 7 (32 bits): once in a while, the game would unexpectedly quit with "Core: out of memory" as the error message. I went to the Blizzard support forum with this problem, and they told me that my video and sound drivers are outdated by a year or two.

Notwithstanding that I'm not sure how these drivers can impact the memory usage of the game, I don't know if upgrading is a good idea. I'm quite sure that it won't hurt the Mac OS side of my computer if I do (as the Blizzard rep suggested to double-check), but said drivers seem to come from Apple, and I'm not sure if my Mac would behave well if I upgraded them.

Has anyone tried to upgrade the sound and video drivers for Windows 7?


texts: Is there a way to automatically adjust EQ settings when the audio output changes?

texts: I have particular EQ settings I like to use for my speakers at home, however when I'm using my laptop speakers or Bluetooth headphones I prefer to have a flat EQ.  Is there a way to specify different EQ settings for each audio output and automatically switch to the correct setting when the audio output is changed?


texts: How do I add the Gmail app to my sharing options (i.e. from photos)?

texts:
I've installed the Gmail app on my iPhone 5s (running iOS 8.x).  However, when I'm done taking a photograph (or directly from within the Photos app), if I choose to share I'm presented with a list of options (Mail, Messages, Facebook, etc.) and the Gmail app isn't one of them.

If I go a step further and click the More link to see the list of all apps on the phone for which sharing can be enabled, the Gmail app isn't even in that list (while things like Slack.com and other apps I use are).

I use the stock Mail app for my work (Exchange) account, and I could if I wanted share a photo just fine using this, however I prefer the Gmail app's categories of mail.

Do you know a set of steps that can get the Gmail app to appear in this list of sharing options?

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated, please advise if you need more details or clarification.


texts: Keep Preview from autoresizing print output

texts:
Whenever I want to print a PDF file from Preview, the print dialog defaults to shrink the page to fit the bounds of the page. I have to manually select scale: and enter 100 into the text field. Is there a hidden default or other way, to tell Preview to always default to 100% print size?

Using a saved print setting as suggested below does not work in this case. I'm using Preview 5.0.2 (504) and Mac OS X 10.6.4, perhaps a bug?

When I save the setting I want to have, open another PDF file, select print, and select my saved settings, the scale: setting jumps to some arbitrary value around 100% (90%-105%) and the radio box stays at "scale to Fit:".


texts: Save all images from all emails automatically

texts:
I receive lots of jpeg files on my mail, and in order for me to save it on my desktop I have to save them one by one.

Is there any other way that I can save all the images without saving them one by one?


texts:
Hey guys I'm using mid 2013 MacBook Pro. I know how to install Windows from bootcamp and I already did last year.

Until now I haven't faced a problem like this: after creating an USB install disc I make a partition and Mac reboots when it reboots it stuck at white screen after I turn off the Mac with power button I start with option key it gives me 4 selection:

After selecting the volume Windows it stuck and I have to turn off with the power button. So does anyone know how to fix it ? Also I tried it with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.


texts: Can I use regular mouse with my MacBook Pro 2011 using Mac OS Lion?

texts: I saw one of my friends using a regular A4Tech OP-620D USB mouse with a MacBook Pro 2010 and Mac OS 10.6.7.  I tried to use a local brand USB mouse on my machine but it didn't work. It showed properties in preferences but the mouse was not functioning.  Therefore can I use a branded USB mouse on OS X Lion? Also can it be a bluetooth or 2.4G wireless mouse?


texts: Using OIKWAN usb-c to ethernet cable on catalina

texts:
I bought this cable
https://www.amazon.com/USB-C-Cisco-Console-Cable-Windows/dp/B0774JV2QQ
and installed FTDI drivers
and the system profiler does pick it up:
FT232R USB UART:

  Product ID:   0x6001
  Vendor ID:    0x0403  (Future Technology Devices International Limited)
  Version:  6.00
  Serial Number:    A91UIYBK
  Speed:    Up to 12 Mb/s
  Manufacturer: FTDI
  Location ID:  0x14400000 / 1
  Current Available (mA):   500
  Current Required (mA):    90
  Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

and i even turned on the kext
 kextstat| grep FTDI
  154    0 0xffffff7f84653000 0x7000     0x7000     com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver (2.4.4) B137605C-32D8-3E81-89B6-E1F8039FC427 <88 64 6 5 3 1>%

but when I have the cable connected from the macbook to the router, no USB connection for internet comes up in the network profile under system network preferences.
Not sure what else to do


texts: Which application/command catches a keyboard shortcut?

texts: Is there a way to find out which application or command catches a global hotkey in osx?


texts: For the Apple SSD drives, will they run slower with less free space available?

texts:
From what I understand, most SSDs will run slower once there is 20% or less free space available, due to TRIM/garbage collection. However, are Apple SSDs the same way?

The reason I ask is because I've seen some drives that are advertised as 256 GB but actually are 280 GB or so in size, so even if they are "full" they can still run at peak performance.

So, I'm thinking of getting a Mac Mini from Apple with an SSD preinstalled in it. Would I have to leave 20% free space at least for peak performance?


texts:
I have an Edirol UA-101 worked perfect on windows 10 and on Mac El Capitan.
Now I switched to an Imac 2010 I5 8GB ram with high sierra but the system doesn't see it. How can i install the driver? In the system report i can see the UA-101 Connected on my USB port


texts: Find Google Chrome installation directory using Terminal

texts:
How do I find the Google Chrome Installation Directory/Path using the command line?
Is Google Chrome always installed to the default path, the "/Applications/" folder?

I have tried the following commands. Can anyone suggest what I am doing wrong?

locate "*Chrome.app"

When i used this command it only search the DB entries of installed software.
find / -type d -name "*Chrome.app"

Lists all the files on the system.

How can I find only Google Chrome’s path using this command, or is there another way?