texts: How to fix problems with different keyboard layouts in iChat screen sharing?

texts: My Mac has a QWERTY keyboard. When someone with a Mac with an AZERTY keyboard shared their screen with me in iChat, I had to pretend I was typing on an AZERTY keyboard to make any text I was typing come out right on the shared screen. Is this a known bug? Is there a way to fix it? (I didn't try, but I assume I could switch the layout to QWERTY on the shared Mac in System Preferences, but then we'd have to constantly switch back-and-forth as the other person needs to type something on the AZERTY keyboard. So I'm wondering whether there's a better solution.)


texts: I backed up my ipad and then did a restore but now some of my apps are coming up incompitable?

texts:
I backed up my ipad 1 using itunes erased all content off the said ipad.
Then did a restore using the image that came off the ipadn1 and now there are 22 conflicts where these apps are now incompatible with the ipad.
I dont understand why as they were running on the ipad before the restore.
Please help!
Thanks in advance.


texts: Does the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter passthrough HDCP?

texts: I have a dual-link (2560x1440) DVI monitor connected to my computer (2015 retina MbP) through the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter. It is reported as not HDCP-complient by iTunes and Netflix. Is this because the monitor doesn't support HDCP, or because the adapter doesn't pass the HDCP?


texts: I'm converting a pages document to word. I've tried the export and save as .doc method. Both files  appear identical but when I try and open either with word, it says the file is corrupted and it cannot open. I tried the option of open and repair, but still no luck. Any suggestions on how to get it to work? I need to have someone edit the pages document in word because they only have access to word.


texts: MacBook Pro screen freaks out, goes psychedelic — I'm at a loss — suggestions?

texts:
Been using and taking care of Macs since 1985, and I've never seen this before. Can't find anything online. Anyone? Graphics card going south?

Reboot fixed the problem, but it returned 2x the next day.

Have zapped the PRAM, waiting to see if that helps.


texts: Can't open a file in sublime text using bash_rc

texts:
My bash_profile function looks like:

function st() { /Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /Users/ishan/workspace/nltk_engine/index.py;}

However, when I do st in terminal, it just opens up a sublime text window without opening the file. I copied the line in terminal and it is working. Its not working through bash_profile.


texts: How can I get the list of allowed users for Remote Management via Terminal?

texts:
I want to use a command line tool to get the list of allowed users for Remote Management (ARD). I was able to enable ARD using kickstart, but I'm having trouble finding how you get the information, not set it.

Is there a com.apple.Sharing or com.apple.ARD somewhere that I'm missing?

defaults /Library/Preferences/com.apple.ARDAgent

doesn't seem to give me the info I need.

Ok, did find

defaults /Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteManagement

but that only gave me whether all local users are allowed for ARD. That is useful, but I want a little bit more. Do I need to use dscl perhaps to find ARD groups?


texts: Why won't iTunes stream 320 kbps audio across a network?

texts:
My iTunes library, that's shared on our network, has some songs that have a bit rate of 320 kbps.  These songs will not play when I try to play them from a client computer - accessing them through the Shared library.

Why won't they play?  Is there a work around besides downgrading the bit rate?


texts:
I had a 17MB template that I wanted to reduce.
I started removing slides to identify which was causing problems, but even with just one remaining blank slide, the file is still 17MB.
I've restarted Keynote and my Mac, but the file size won't change.
Any help would be much appreciated!


texts: Deleting my mail in Mac, but space is not cleared

texts: Today, I deleted alot of files in Mac Mail but it did not clear any space on my HD. It keeps saying Mail is using 5.36 GB, no matter how much I delete and empty my trash. I have rebooted several times. I'm using Macbook Air with Catalina.


texts: iPhone7: Does anyone else show "Phone App" under Location Services?

texts:
My iPhone7 (iOS 10.1.1) displays a "Phone App" (the icons is the same one that you make calls from) on the Settings > Privacy > Location Services page. My wife has same phone and hers does not. AppleCare does not show this on their lab phones either.

Interestingly, when I first saw this, I only had the choice for "never" share, which was unchecked. So I checked it, but couldn't uncheck it. About 2 hours later, I had 2 additional options "While Using the App" and "Always" for a new total of the standard 3 choices.

Apple is baffled and looking into it. Anyone have the same problem?


texts: Apple TV App lacks TV Plus tab after update to Big Sur; only showing Library tab

texts:
What I am seeing

What I should be seeing

I can still watch content by first finding the show on the web then allowing it to open the content within the TV.app, however, this is suboptimal. How would I get my tabs back?


texts: I have an iPod touch 4th generation Jailbroken 5.0.1, and today I started getting this "unsupported URL" error within apps, and on the home screen safari shortcuts. I have noticed that the url's start with "o" so it looks like "ohttp://". I have no idea how to fix this so any help would be great!


texts: Use Automator for saving file on NAS, what happen if NAS is not accessible?

texts:
I'm still new with OS X and have learned how to use Automator for zipping a folder in one file, named with date, on my Hard Disk. I saved the set of actions as an app. I'm planning to use Calendar to run it daily at 1pm. This should work fine.

I'm using the French language for Automator (trying to translate the called Actions) :
1. Get elements/items in Finder (I fill in the folder I want to backup)
2. Create an archive (I fill in the target and the name I want for the archive) – screenshot

If I want to save the zip archive on my NAS, (ReadyNAS 312) rather than on my Hard Disk, what will happen at 1PM when the NAS is not working (powered off, no network connectivity, etc.)?

In my tiny Automator script, do I have to "test" if the NAS is connected before running the archiving action? If so, what is the right (and easy) way with Automator?


texts: Automator: Save images from a list of URLs in a text file

texts:
I have a text file with a list of URLs of images from a website. I would like to download them to a folder named Art on my computer.

I have tried Get Contents of TextEdit Document and then Extract URLs from Text, but then I don't understand how to parse each URL and save the image before moving to the next URL.

How can I batch download several images from their URLs?


texts: Macbook pro won't start after update to Mojave

texts:
I've just updated my 2012 MacBook Pro to macOS Mojave but it won't boot (the caps lock light won't turn on and off.)

So I've try to hold CMD+R during the boot but it asks me for a password, but I don't remember having set a password in the past. Does someone have a solution?
Also I want to know if the password box is in qwerty or azerty (normaly my mac is in azerty.)


texts: How to send text with telnet in Terminal?

texts:
I would like to send some text to a port on my machine using telnet in the Mac OS X Terminal.

I start telnet using:

telnet localhost 8080

Then I type some text. Is that text send automatically or do I have to do something to send the text?


texts:
For macos built-in tftpd, I can not edit the config file /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tftp.plist which is readonly. So I can not add -l option to it. I would like to know the detail what tftpd does, downloading process etc.. How can I enable and check its log?

I tried to run tail -f /var/log/system.log, but it doesn't have any tftpd log. I tried dmesg too, but no tftpd log there either. Thanks a lot.

Btw, I don't find tftp tag, so I have no ideas which tag I should use.


texts: How to block Angry Birds Toons movies in iOS App (like Angry Brids Go)

texts:
Angry Birds Go comes with a menu item where you can watch Angry Birds Toons and other movies. Is it possible to block these movies (as a "parental control")?

For example: Is the server serving the movies known such that I can block the server in the router?


texts: Why is Google Chrome not seen in the Screen Recording Options in Security and Privacy settings

texts:
I recently upgraded to Catalina(which I regret now). I have been facing lot of weird issues after upgrading one of which being not able to share the screen on Google Hangout Meet. I followed a few of the approaches mentioned in other forums.

The fix was simple where I have to go the System Preferences > Security and Privacy > Screen Recording and make sure Google Chrome is checked.

The issue for me, though, is that I am not seeing "Google Chrome" on the list when I go to the Screen Recording section and I have no idea how to make Google Chrome seen on the list. Can anyone help with this?


texts: Airpods Bluetooth interference when cycling

texts:
I use Airpods with the iPhone SE and I also wear an Apple Watch.  The Airpods work extremely well at home, in the office, or whenever I'm just walking.  When I'm cycling to work, however, I often get interference in the Bluetooth connection, leading to stuttering music playback.

Subjectively it feels as if this is more frequent at large intersections with lots of traffic and never happens in the park.

What could be the source of the interference?

I imagine that there are many very strong WiFi hotspots in the area, but then I don't really have problems if I'm walking through the city. It seems to be connected to cycling.


texts: On login, I am only given the Guest user option. How do I log into my account?

texts:
I tried to add a guest account to my laptop and when I restarted the computer, the only login option I have is the Guest Account.  Choosing this account restarts the computer into the Safari-only configuration.  There is no Systems Preferences available in this mode.

I did not unchoose my administrator account.  How did this happen?  And how do I get it back?


texts:
I am running Mac OS 10.11.2 and have Toshiba (1TB) and WD (1 and 2
TB) external drives that mount but are read only.  I tried the terminal script LABEL=DRIVE_NAME none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse which according to the disk utility is writeable, but I do not see the icon on the desktop or the finder.  If I go to the Finder All my Files, I see the contents of the disk, but I cannot write to it through any program.  Thoughts, suggestions?  Thanks.  All of the Finder Preferences are set correctly and the drives are fine since they work flawlessly on my other Apple Air running OS 10.7.9.
John


texts: Why won't closing the lid sleep my MacBook Pro with external monitor attached after upgrading to Lion?

texts:
Up until yesterday (with Snow Leopard), closing the lid would cause my MacBook to sleep whether or not the external monitor was connected.

Since upgrading to Lion last night, closing the lid when the external monitor is attached just tosses all windows to that screen and keeps going.

I realize I can sleep via the Apple menu or keyboard before closing the lid. I'd rather not have to, and I'm wondering if there's a setting to restore the sleep-on-close behavior.


texts: Can workplace IT settings interfere with iCloud bookmark settings?

texts: If I set new bookmarks when I'm at work, the changes don't propagate to my iOS devices (which are also with me at work) or to my iMac at home. But if I set new bookmarks at home, they do propagate to my other devices, at least most of the time. I've noticed that sometimes new bookmarks set on my iPhone 5 or iPad 3 don't always propagate to my iMac or to my MBA. But my question is, could my workplace's overzealous (security security!) IT have something in place that interferes with iCloud syncing?


texts: I'm not sure what caused this but my dock used to be fixed when I was on a desktop window and not present when I was in a full screen window. Now it's changed so that it automatically hides and shows it, whichever screen I'm in. I can change it back to fixed but if I do then it's fixed on all of my full screen windows too. Does anybody know how to change it back?


texts: Automate removing the last page of a bunch of PDFs

texts: I have a folder containing hundreds of PDFs, and I would like to remove the last page of each one in a quick way. How can I let my Mac automate this task? Do I need additional software to do this?


texts: Computer shutdown while downloading mojave, and now there is not enough space to download

texts: I was downloading MacOS Mojave and most of the way through, my computer shut down. Before I started downloading I had about 10GB of space on my hard disk. Now I about 6GB. How do I get rid of whatever temporary files are using all the space?


texts: Thunderbolt Display does not recognize USB keyboard

texts:
I have a Macbook Pro which I use in combination with a Thunderbolt display.
I also have a standard Apple USB keyboard with numeric keypad which is plugged in one of the USB ports of the Thunderbolt display.

The problem I have is, that the keyboard is often not recognized. Usually when I shut the laptop down and start it again. I usually managed to bring it to work when I unplug the keyboard several times and plug it in again OR I open the settings and wait for some time and do random things.

I don't have any problems when I just put the Mac to sleep. The keyboard will still work when I wake the Macbook up again.

The keyboard works perfectly well when I connect it with the Macbook directly - so it seems not to be an issue with the cable. Other USB devices work in the ports of the display - so this seems not to be the issue as well.

But of course I want it to work with the display so that I don't have to unplug too many things to take my laptop away.


texts: Can I increase the minimum font size of text when reading html messages in Mail.app (in Mavericks and later)?

texts:
I went searching for this answer myself today after upgrading from Lion to Yosemite. In earlier versions of Apple Mail, one could use an undocumented preference to set a minimum font size for reading messages:

defaults write com.apple.mail MinimumHTMLFontSize 12

I found several references lamenting that it no longer had any effect in Mavericks or Yosemite, and that it was no longer possible to affect font sizes when reading HTML messages.

Not satisfied, I dug into the mail.app bundle and found a (partial) solution myself and will post it below. If anyone has a better solution though, I'm all ears!


texts: Expand APFS container using free space located before the container within macOS

texts:
I have an SSD (disk0) that contains my macOS Mojave installation. SIP is enabled (and for reasons outside my control, cannot be disabled) so I cannot give the output for gpt -r show disk0 nor can I unmount disk0.
But going into Windows (installed on a completely separate drive), is one partition located at the end of the drive (my macOS install) with free space preceding it but I was unable to run diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s3 0 because of Error: -69743: The new size must be different than the existing size.
I tried creating an APFS partition and merging the two together, after creating a partition, this is what the diskutil list disk0 output is:
/dev/disk0 (external):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI SYSTEM                  536.9 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk5         110.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         139.5 GB   disk0s3

Running diskutil mergePartitions APFS Macintosh disk0s2 disk0s3 gives me
You cannot merge disks into an APFS Physical Store

Instead, you can delete the partitions following the APFS Physical Store by
using "diskutil eraseVolume free n <disk>" for all such partitions, and
then by growing the corresponding APFS Container by its APFS Physical Store
to fill the gap by using "diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0"

Doing so in the reverse order gives me
The given partitions are not ordered sequentially on disk

The only problem is, they are sequential!
I don't want disk0s2 because that is my free space, I need to preserve disk0s3. GParted's APFS support is limited so I'm hesitant with shifting the APFS drive using that. All resizing guides presume free space is succeeding the partition, what should be done if it is preceding the partition?


texts: Sign into different third party app accounts

texts: I'd like to be able to sign into different third party apps with separate accounts. Is there a way to force iOS to open a web view instead of switching to the app for sign in? For example, I currently have an app that I want to use to sign in to Dropbox. When I click sign in, it redirects to my Dropbox app, which is already signed in, but I want to use a different Dropbox account for that app. How can I make it open a web view so I can sign into a different Dropbox account directly?


texts: Mail 11.2 not grabbing new mail from Exchange server

texts:
I can send my exchange mailbox an email from a gmail account and the mail shows up in my exchange mailbox in OWA and then it shows up in Outlook.  However, it does not show up in the Mail app.

I've got an iMac on High Sierra 10.13.2.  I am using the Mail app v11.2 with an Exchange account.  I also have Outlook for Mac 2011 v14.7.3 for my Exchange account.

Currently, once the mail app is open, the only thing that lets new mail from my exchange account show up in the mail app is quitting the mail app and re-opening it.  Once it re-opens, it downloads all mail but when trying to sync any further when more mail comes in, it tells me there is no new mail to download when I know that there is.

So far I have tried rebuilding the Inbox folder, removing the internet account and adding a new one for my exchange account, and I have attempted to take the account offline and then back online but that doesn't seem to do anything.  When rebuilding or removing/re-adding the account, it seems to download half of the mail in one go and then it just stops downloading mail.  I have to quit the mail app and re-open it to get it to download the rest of the mail.

Any ideas?  This is starting to hurt my brain :X


texts: XQuartz: Enable ‘Allow connections from network clients’ via command line

texts:
I'd like to write a shell script that uses xquartz.

Specifically the ‘Allow connections from network clients’ checkbox at Settings/Security has to be checked. Is there a way to do this programmatically ?


texts:
I am really interesting in buying a wireless CarPlay adapter (like https://carplay2air.com/).  I want to use Carplay without the need to connect a Lightning cable.

Before doing this, I would really like know how these kind of adapters actually work.

Is there some kind of an exploit they are using? If so, I would be afraid of having a really expensive black box as soon as iOS is updated in the future.


texts: Change background color of a folder in Finder

texts: I have many white icons in a folder and they are not visible on white background of folder, how can I change background color of a folder in Finder?


texts: What does "plays" really count in iTunes?

texts:
iTunes displays the number of "plays" for each track. What exactly does this mean?

For example, playing a little bit of a track does not seem to increment the number. But playing most, but not all, of a track seems to.

Does playing n seconds trigger the increment? n percent of the track? Or something else?

I have a 4GB iPod Mini, if that matters.

The motivation is, I have iTunes set to automatically delete podcasts after they're played, and I don't want to accidentally trigger a deletion.


texts: Two older Macs (G3 / Intel) need their drives erased. No install discs

texts:
I have two older Macs in which I want to erase the hard drive. Secure-erase is a plus, but not a show-stopper at this point. I don't have any Mac OS X discs so I can't use disc utility.

What I'd really like to do is download or buy and download a utility that can create bootable discs so I can boot each computer and erase the hard drives.

Any suggestions on utilities?


texts: How did a user manage to get my multi-window app to run in "Tabbed Windows Mode"?

texts:
Today one of my users sent me some screenshots showing my application running in "Tabbed Windows" mode, i.e. with all the usually-separate windows showing up as tabs inside a single window, like this:

This is very cool, especially since I never actually programmed in any support for a "tabbed windows mode" in an application.  :)

Unfortunately the user doesn't know how he got the application into this mode, and I can't figure out how to do it either.

When I Google the subject, I find articles like this one describing how this mode was added to some of Apple's own apps, and how MacOS/X will automatically added to any third-party apps that are "document-based"; for those apps, some additional menu items (like "Merge All Windows" and "Show Previous/Next Tab" and "Move Tab To New Window") will get automatically inserted into the Window menu.

However, my app isn't "document-based" AFAIK (it's a cross-platform app based on Qt5.4.1), and it doesn't have any menu named "Window".  (It does have a menu named "Windows", but those menu items do not show up in that menu)

Does anyone know how my user pulled off this trick?


texts: Can I install TextMate 2 and keep TextMate 1?

texts: I would like to try TextMate's new version but since it is a beta release with some bugs and unfinished features, I don't want to use it everyday. Is there any way to install TextMate 2 and keep Textmate 1?


texts: I use time machine for backups.  I just updated to Catalina 10.15.4 from Catalina 10.15.3 and don't have permission for backups, unknown user is the only user that has read/write permissions.  How do I correct this problem ?  I've searched and tried a few answers but nothing seems to work. I use the terminal to check permissions of the directories/files and it shows that my user is the owner.


texts:
The iTunes connect site has a link for the native app, when you browse from an iOS app. On iPhone the download link works fine, however on iPad it opens the iTunes app (rather than the app store) and doesn't seem to ever load anything?

Does the app exist for iPad (or if you can install it, does it only work in 2x mode)? And is there another way to to get to the app page?


texts:
I have a mouse that I bought from eBay and has two buttons on the side. For some reason, these keys don't do anything. In the modifier keys section of the keyboard settings, it called the mouse "SiliconWin mouse", I changed all the keys to command and no command worked. I thought these keys served no purpose but I later found if I pressed an application in the dock with the key, it would do the same thing as a right-click. Again I checked and tried to use the keys as right-clicks but did not work. Is it possible to change the functionality of the key?

P.S.
I tried setting keyboard up and it asked me to press the button to the right of shift, I pressed everything and did not work.

If I search up SiliconWin, it comes up with Windows driver and no mac drivers.


texts: iPad possibly stolen, not appearing in Find my iPhone, what options do I have?

texts:
I suspect that my cleaner has stolen my iPad Pro. I restored from an iCloud backup of an iPhone. It does not show up in find my iPhone on safari or my iPhone. I only had the device a week and hadn't had the time to properly set it up. I have definitely signed into iCloud on the device though.

Is there any thing I can do to track it down, send a message etc without Find my iPhone?
Can I reauthorise it so my iMessages aren't sent there?

Before I definitely had my iMessages and other notifications being sent there


texts: Finder tags not saved for downloaded files

texts:
When I save a file and add tags to it in the save dialog box, these tags are not added to the file. This happens in all browsers I have tried (Safari, Firefox, Chrome). Tags do appear to get added to files when they are created locally in an application. This just seems to be an issue when downloading a file. This seems to happen with any file that is downloaded to any folder on my Mac.
I have searched everywhere and only found this thread on discussions.apple.com from 2017. It is focused only on a similar issue with Microsoft Office that Apple claimed was not their fault, and that was fixed when upgrading to a newer version of Office.
Any help/advice is greatly appreciated, this issue has disrupted a lot of automation I have set up for sorting files.
Thanks!
Edit: I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.6 on a Early 2014 MacBook Air, 1.4GHz i5, 4GB RAM and 120GB SSD.
Edit #2: I just tested this again after clearing my Finder cache and restarting Finder. Firefox and Safari still delete tags assigned on download, but Chrome works. Any idea why this might be the case and what I can do to fix it?


texts: Any way to configure fsck_hfs to use more memory to speed up verification of Time Capsule images?

texts:
Periodically Time Machine verifies sparsebundle backups with fsck_hfs. When the sparsebundle is on a Time Capsule (TC) it does this by creating a partial and much smaller representation of the sparsebundle on the TC, transferring the result to the mac into
/private/var/db/com.apple.backupd.backupVerification

and then running fsck_hfs on it locally (it mounts the local sparsebundle as can be seen with diskutil list).
The problem is that it takes a very long time for fsck_hfs to verify this representation of very large TC sparsebundles (e.g. >24hrs).
[This leaves the timemachine process showing in the menu as if it was stuck 'verifying' with the real Time Capsule disk apparently no longer mounted under /Volumes - which confuses many into thinking the process has died]
fsck_hfs is launched by its parent process backupd with the parameters -f -n -x -E . There are various posts about fsck_hfs working much more efficiently if allowed to use more memory (-c option). By default (at least on my system) it seems to be limited to 3Gb.
My question is, is there anyway to pass a config that might cause backupd to launch fsck_hfs with the additional (-c) parameter and so run faster?


texts: Does USB-C to HDMI take more processing power than direct USB-C to DisplayPort?

texts:
I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two USB-C ports). My company bought a USB-C to HDMI adapter to connect a screen that has both HDMI and DisplayPort.

I'm having some issues unrelated to the question (I have to unplug and plug back the HDMI cable for it to work). So I was wondering... Would a USB-C to DisplayPort work better? not only in terms of getting rid of having the unplug/plug the HDMI cable but also in overall performance?

How does a USB-C to HDMI work vs USB-C to DisplayPort?

For instance, I know that if you plug this HDMI adapter to a 4K screen, this will run at 30Hz. On the other hand, when using a direct USB-C to DisplayPort cable, the same screen would run at 60Hz. Is this because of the limitations of HDMI itself? or is it because it requires significantly more power to run an HDMI adapter?

(I'm more interested in the performance part and how the Displayport and HDMI connections are different, if any, than in the issue I'm having with my current adapter).


texts:
I have an enclosure Hornettek Dual Bay SATA Case with removable disk trays, and RAID0, RAID1. USB3.0 and eSATA dual bay case with two 2T WD drives. My idea was to set them up as separate drives to have 2 backup drives.

Accidentally I formatted both drives as one. I guess that created something like a RAID0.

I want to break that, to be able to have the backup system I need. Disk Utility is not helpful, as even though the enclosure is set as Port Multiplier, my Mac will still read the drives as one single drive & volume. Can I separate them with Terminal?

It is safe to completely delete them as I still have not copied any information onto them?

When I use diskutil this comes up:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            499.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                4.0 TB     disk1s2

So disk 1 are the two 2T WD.


texts: I am trying to start with Gitmoji and so far it takes me some time to find the appropriate emoji in the Characters viewer on macOS. Is it possible to define custom group of characters? There is already Emoji, Arrows, Bullets/Stars. I am looking for a way how to add my own. I am not interested into workarounds like using Favorites group


texts: How can I use iPhone as a roaming authenticator for webauthn?

texts:
I would like to use my iPhone as a roaming authenticator using FaceID when authenticating to web sites using webauthn.
I have upgraded my iPhone iOS to version 14.0.1. I use webauthn.io as an example web site.
Use case
I want to register my iPhone as a roaming authenticator  on a web site, such that I can authenticate with it, both

when visiting a web site with my private laptop, but also
so that I can authenticate with it when visiting the same web site on a work laptop.

Registration
As I want to use the device as a roaming authenticator, I assume that I should choose Cross Platform as Authenticator Type on webauthn.io.
But it seems that I can only register the iPhone as authenticator when not chosing Cross Platform as Authenticator Type.
Now webauthn is new for me, is the problem on the web site I test with or is this not supported on iPhone, or how can I setup the iPhone as a roaming authenticator?


texts: How do I allow new system preferences in profile manager?

texts:
We're using Profile Manager on our group of Macs.  The System Preferences options are setup as a whitelist.  However, the profile manager doesn't know about certain options, so they get blocked by default when I'd like to be able to enable them (Example: Java Control Panel and Wacom Tablet settings).

Is there a way to tell Profile Manager that those things exist so that I can enable them (and keep the whitelisting model)?


texts:
I’d want to know if it is possible (by extensions, hack, context menu...) to have the mac native share menu in firefox?

Thanks

More about share menu extension:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac

https://developer.apple.com/app-extensions/


texts:
How can I reset Safari as if it was never run, so that it opens with a "Welcome to Safari" window?

I've tried removing all traces of Safari in ~/Library without luck.
I am just curious where this information is stored.

I'm running El Capitan 10.11.6.


texts: Why are some pop up boxes (or "select" boxes) colored blue but others aren't in Mac OS X?

texts:
I am fairly new to Mac OS X and I am wondering why some of these pop up boxes have a blue in them, but others do not. For example, on one website it looks like this (look at the little "Select site" box):

But then on another site, it looks like this (the "Show:" box):

Is there a different name for each of these? They both look like basic <select> elements but oddly it is blue on one site and not on others.


texts:
I just added my no-ip domain to /private/etc/hosts under a shorter alias:

alias           host.no-ip.biz

I tried the following on the shell:

dscacheutil -flushcache

but it still says:

ssh: Could not resolve hostname

What up with that?


texts: How Can I Copy files to a Mounted Drive using AppleScript?

texts: In what way can I copy home folders (Documents, Pictures, Movies, etc...) to a mounted drive without using the POSIX function in AppleScript?


texts: How to view purchased items that have not been transferred to mac?

texts:
I connected my iPhone to my new mac which runs macos Big Sur, i get the following message when I want to update my iPhone:

There are purchased items on the iPhone “myiPhone” that have not been transferred to your Mac. You should transfer these items to your Mac before updating this iPhone. Are you sure you want to continue?

How can I view which purchases this message is talking about? I want to go through them and see if its just stuff I can easily redownload again (like music I bought from iTunes) or if it's other stuff (like stuff I manually put on my phone).


texts: How to execute Terminal command using selected text?

texts: I want to bind a shortcut to run a command in Terminal with text that I selected while web browsing. How could I do this?


texts: Is there anyway of syncing my Google/Gmail tasks with iOS reminders?


texts: How can I link data from Numbers to a Pages document?

texts: I'd like to have all my client invoices in a Numbers document, including invoice number, service period, daily rates,... and generate a invoice from that with a template I have created in Pages. How can I accomplish this?


texts: iterm3 reverse minimal theme compact style

texts:
When my term updated to its latest version (Build 3.3.0beta1), it removed the titlebar from the window.

Apparently iTerm's theme is now: minimal. And the default profile window type is: compact

But I have no way of reversing this. How can I get back my titlebar, with the red green and yellow buttons?

====> EDIT

These are what my theme and default profile window settings look like.


texts: AppleScript / Automator to sort files based on filename

texts:
I want to select a folder of QuickTime movies and copy each one into separate sub folders depending on the filename (by copying not moving).

I have a folder that I want to contain sub folders called XA and XB, but I only want them to copy across the h264 versions.

Example file names are as follows:

XA0000_v001_h264.mov
XA0000_v001.mov
XB0010_v002_h264.mov
XB0010_v002.mov

What would be an efficient way of coding this?


texts: How to group multiple images in iWork Pages so I don't have to move images one by one? That can be done in Microsoft Words, but I can't find this option in iWork Pages.


texts: How to open a file as plain text in TextEdit?

texts: I have a *.rtf file which I want to open as plain text. How can I do this?


texts: Can't install Apple app updates on a new Mac mini

texts:
I just got a new Mac mini and I'm trying to update Apple apps as requested, e.g. Pages, Numbers etc. App store asks me to sign in to iCloud which is fine, then gives me 2 messages:

Your request is temporarily unable to be processed.

followed swiftly by

Could not assign applications to your account.

Any thoughts on how to resolve these issues?


texts: Will an 85W power adapter fry the MBP 13" Mid 2009?

texts:
According to Apple, the 60W version of Magsafe is compatible with the MBP 13" Mid 2009. However, I've read that the 85W version is also compatible and leads to faster charge times. I'll keep this short and say, is that correct? Or will it fry my Mac?

P.S - I also read that the 'T style' and 'L style' cords are interchangeable. Could someone please second that?

Thanks


texts:
I'm trying to figure out a way to update several text files with new content WITHOUT replacing the original files. Essentially, the files exist on a shared webdav (network drive), and the software reading the files has created generic "permanent links" to the files.

I have copied all of the files (about 600 of them) off the webdav onto my computer and painstakingly updated each and every one of them. But when I copy them back onto the webdav, it breaks the permanent links. Is there any way to do an "update" copy instead of a "replace" copy in os x? That way, the file doesn't get deleted and replaced, and instead just updates the contents of the files?

Thanks for any help you can give!


texts: How do I get my monitor to run at the correct resolution reliably?

texts:
I just started a new remote job. They shipped me a 2018 15" Macbook Pro, a 32" Asus PB328Q monitor (QHD, aka 2560x1440), and a Satechi USB-C adapter, with an HDMI cable for connecting the monitor. All of the above were used previously by a former employee. I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.6; upgrading to Catalina is not an option at the moment for IT policy reasons.

About 90% of the time (including right now), when I connect the monitor, the system runs it at 1080p resolution. As expected when running at non-native resolution, everything is blurry onscreen and I don't get the real estate I want.

If I unplug and replug the adapter from the laptop, or the HDMI cable from the adapter, there's a small chance it will come back at the right resolution. I have only had this work when plugging into the left-side ports on the laptop.

The Displays prefpane's extra window for the monitor shows that it is being recognized correctly as a PB328. Option-clicking on Scaled to reveal more resolutions does not help. (By default, only four resolutions are shown; option-clicking reveals several more, but none larger than 1080p.)

If I unplug and replug repeatedly, eventually the native resolution shows up. At the same time, the Refresh Rate dropdown is disabled and the Underscan option disappears. Perhaps these are useful indicators?

I found this related question, which has no accepted answer. ColorSync Utility reports "No problems found." The monitor does not support HDMI 2.0, so that can't be the problem. I am on the latest version of Mojave and this monitor is not new, so I don't think graphics drivers could be it.

Could this be related to switching between integrated and discrete graphics? If yes, how can I confirm and/or control that?


texts: Ctrl key on Microsoft keyboard does not map to Mac's command

texts:
I am just settling in a new job and what I got on my hardware setup is a Mac with a Microsoft keyboard.  This support page indicates that the Control key on my PC keyboard should be mapping to Mac's Command key but it does not (e.g. CtrlC/V does not work).

How can I fix this?


texts: Absolutely eliminate "Automatic new Desktop when dragging"

texts:
As far as I know I do have only one (1) Desktop enabled
I'm looking at this web page right now in Safari.
Safari is a normal window (say, 50% of the width and height of the physical screen, and it is sitting right in the middle of the physical screen).
This is a mid 2015 mbp with no external monitors attached.  Every piece of software is the latest as of writing
Using the pointer, I grab an image (say, one of the small icons on this screen).
I grag it to the extreme right of the desktop - as if I am going to drop it on the desktop near the right
But I keep dragging it, and hold it on the extreme right edge of the screen

IN FACT WHAT HAPPENS IS......

After a few moments, the "whole desktop" will slide to a new desktop on the "right".
Strangely, this new desktop has a different color background to my usual desktop
The "new" Desktop appears to be identical to my usual only desktop (same icons scattered around etc), except only the background color is different

And click here for a video !!!

http://tinypic.com/r/jq2nis/9

I want to completely disable this "sliding" function.  (Or at least know what the hell it is!!) Is it possible?

Related!  How do I correctly set strictly ONLY ONE desktop?


texts: Is there a fan in the new Airport Extreme?

texts:
I'm wondering if there is a fan in Apple's Airport Extreme wireless router so that I can plan for a low noise environment. Is there any source measuring the noise from this part or documenting the internal construction?

http://store.apple.com/us/product/ME918/airport-extreme


texts: How to limit the traffic generated by mDNSResponder?

texts:
Using the activity monitor, I can observe that mDNSResponder has sent, after a while, 595 KB and received 313.8 MB.

Some details about my network topology: I connect with WiFi to an Android phone and a Windows 8 computer was on the same local network.  I’d like to know if an any situation this would use tethering data which can be costly in some countries per MB sent/received.

I know that mDNSResponder is a legitimate macOS process.

My question is how can I limit the traffic generated by mDNSResponder in order to avoid it running up a data bill.

Is this possible?


texts:
Does anyone know what the sysmond application does on OS X? Lately it has been taking about 25-30% cpu constantly for no apparent reason.

Things I've tried so far:

Reboot
SMC reset
PRAM reset
Starting up in safe mode (sysmond also sucks up resources there)
Filesystem check (except for the regular incorrect directory count, no errors or whatever)

For the time being I've just disabled the sysmond plist but I guess it's not completely useless so I'm wondering what it's supposed to do and whether disabling is harmful ;)


texts: Is there a way to open separate instance of chrome where CMD Q doesn't close all chrome windows?

texts:
I'm using MacOS 10.13.6 (High Seirra)
I was reading through some ways to launch new windows of Chrome on macOS and keep running into the same problem; How can I launch multiple instances of Chrome where CMD+Q doesn't close all of them?

Perhaps my understanding of what this action does is incorrect?
I have been under the impression that when I use CMD+Tab each icon displayed is an instance of that application.

I tried this:

open -na /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome

which seems to open a new window, but I still only see one instance of Google Chrome running in the Activity Monitor.

I found an answer from 2012 that suggests the only way possible is to literally copy the application which I can't believe is still true today. Especially since I want to be able to several instances at a time.


texts: What Yammer clients available on the Mac?

texts: People in my new job seems to like Yammer. I'm aware that Yammer has a desktop client for the Mac, but I find the interface rather unappealing (version 300222 of the Adobe Air client is not responsive and really slow when switching between my primary network and external networks). I wonder if there are 3rd party clients available?


texts:
Prior to OS X Catalina I could add a user to the sudoers by editing /etc/sudoers with an admin account.

With OS X Catalina, I can no longer do this as it seems that Catalina moved to a read-only root filesystem and so /etc/sudoers cannot be edited.

According to this official Apple User Guide, it appears that the sudoers file is now located at /private/etc/sudoers, but I am still unable to edit this file with an admin account.

What is the correct way to grant a user sudouers access in Catalina?


texts:
I want to backup the photobook templates in Photos, because they will be discontinued at the end of the month and I want to continue to use them.

I found a cache here,

/Users/user/Library/Containers/com.apple.iPhoto/Data/Library/Application Support/iLifePageLayout/ThemeCache

but looks like it's just a cache, I want to have a backup of the files, so when in a few years I need them again, I can restore them.


texts: Have iMessage chat.db in Mac updated without user being logged in

texts:
I want to connect (through ssh, for example) to users in different computers and copy their iMessage history (chat.db). But this file doesn't get updated while the user isn't logged in.

Is there a way to get message updates while the user is logged out?


texts: Is it possible to enable OSX keyboard text substitution in more apps?

texts:
OSX has built into text substitution that is configured in System Preferences > Keyboard > Text. This works great in certain apps, such as Evernote and Textedit, but seems to be disabled in other apps/content areas. Is it possible to enable it in other apps, such as Google Chrome?

I would like to use text substitution to drop in signatures when composing emails at gmail.com while using Google Chrome.


texts:
I set my mail agent tool to send and to receive mails with many accounts such as a gmail account.

I want to read the mail via command line for triggering cronjob purpose.

For example,  | grep "Subject: " && echo "I got it." this one is my purpose.

Is there also a way to switch among those accounts' mail box for reading purpose?


texts: block "GET - On the App Store" link ads in Mobile Safari

texts:
A lot of mobile optimised web sites display App Store links on the top of the page.

How to block this annoying ads? I already run and ad blocker for iOS.


texts: Airdrop file notification on Mac - missing "open in finder" option

texts:
When I send an image from my iPhone to my Mac for which I preferably use AirDrop, I'm annoyed that the notification doesn't give me the option to open the received file in Finder, only to open the file itself (see screenshot 1). However, in almost all cases I don't want to open the file, but do something with the file.
Therefore I end up either ignoring the notification and opening the download folder directly (in which I then have to find the file) or open the file and use the right click drop down on the Preview topbar title to get to the file location (see screenshot 2). However I find these two workflows quite clumsy and annoying.
Does anyone have an idea of how to get from the notification directly to the file in the Finder? Or is it only me that is annoyed by this?
screenshot 1.
screenshot 2.


texts:
I recently upgraded my iPhone and, as usually, all of my e-mail accounts transferred seamlessly when I restored my settings from a recent backup. All except my msn.com account. In this account's inbox there was just a single bizarre email:

Choosing "Continue using this email app" took me to a website claiming that my choice was confirmed, but no mail has showed up.

How do I get Outlook (MSN) mail to work on iOS on my new Phone?


texts: Can't delete files on sparse bundle apfs volume ("rm failed - no space left on device")

texts:
I have a sparse bundle with an apfs volume on it. I recently filled it up with an rsync operation. Since then I cannot delete files anymore; the rm complains that the disk is full. The same happens if I use echo > file.txt for an existing file; or truncate -s 0 file.txt.
Nothing is using the volume since it was a dedicated backup storage - nothing except my (manually executed) rsync and my manual shell commands touched it.
It seems like the file system cannot find a few spare bits to modify its internal structure.
I unmounted it (without problems/errors/warnings), and now it does not mount anymore (it says "Keine aktivierbaren Dateisysteme" - probably "no file systems can be activated" or something like that).
The underlying file system is error free and was not disconnected/unmounted during the whole procedure.
Two questions:

Is there a sane way to fix the original problem (file system full + no way to remove files)?
Is this a known problem? At the end of this day, this means total file system loss simply due to it being full. Seems hardly believable to me. Or is a apfs volume on a sparse bundle considered experimental?

This is on Mojave (10.14.6). The file system which contains the sparse bundle is a smb:// share (which itself has plenty of space left).
EDIT: It turns out I have this issue https://matt.sh/apfs-object-map-free-recovery, i.e. a broken and unrecoverable (at least with MacOS standard tools) volume. If someone else arrives here through this search, that link may help for that issue (it also has tips on recovering with some open source tool, which I didn't test). I'm still curious about whether anyone else had the "can't delete - no space left" issue; but maybe it is just a convoluted error message caused by the broken FS. Which is a topic for another question.


texts: Bash Script that will start up second Terminal process?

texts:
I need a script that will be able to fire up a second Terminal instance and pass a command directly to that one whilst it continues it's own executions.

It's to start up Python script that will host a server whilst the main instance of Terminal would continue to run it's series of executions over a period of 30 seconds (for example) then it would be able to kill the PID of the Python script and kill that secondary Terminal process and continue until it's finished.

Does anybody have an idea of how to do this? Coming from Windows, it would be very easy to get a BAT file to execute a second BAT file in it's own environment and then kill it at a later stage.


texts: How to get a "modern" emacs that runs in a terminal on os x lion?

texts:
I just installed Prompt on my iPad so I could possiby do some real work on my iMac via ssh.  so far Mutt and Vim and emacs seemto work responsively enough for me.  I've made a few tries at emacs before, but am essentially relearning it.

Of course the emacs that comes with Lion is 22.1.1.  I installed the current emacs cocoa on my iMac,  but it doesn't run in a terminal.

Is there a terminal version of 24 precompiled for OS X?  Or is compiling it straightforward?  So far I've had no need for Macports or Homebrew, and would prefer not to use them.


texts: USERS AND GROUPS advanced options cannot access

texts:
I wanted to change my mac's name so I changed the "computer name" in SHARING and also the "account name" and "full name" in USERS & GROUPS. Only thing is I didn't change the "home directory".

Now I cannot make any changes to my mac that require hitting the little lock and enter my details. Nothing works. And I get the "not in the sudoers file" error when I try to fix my problem through the terminal...
I think my mistake was to NOT change the "home directory" along with the account name and full name? I was worried making changes to the directory might alter more than I wanted.

Please help me!


texts: How do I split a large Pages document into multiple Pages documents

texts:
I have a rather large Pages document that has many sections.
I need to break each of those sections out into their own Pages documents.

I am using Pages 5.5.3.

Can this be done easily? Right now I'm in cut and paste mode.


texts:
When I open the Outlook window, the topmost message (the most recent) becomes selected. I've got Outlook set to automatically mark messages as read when selected, so it becomes read. This is a problem if I accidentally open Outlook and don't notice this has happened; I've missed emails before because of this.

How do I make Outlook 2011 keep the selected message the same between closing and reopening the message window?

Basically, I want Outlook's mail selection to behave like Mail.

   Because Mail is the best mail client ever. Too bad Outlook's calendar is so much better than iCal, or I'd use Mail and iCal.


texts: iOS Updates when bandwidth is restricted

texts:
I was on a cruise ship in the Caribbean a month ago and needed to keep in touch via email.

Connect@sea offered a 300mb plan which I thought would work.  I followed all of their guidelines about what to disable etc.

All was going well until...

I woke up on day 3 and IOS 8.1.1 had downloaded (182mb) and was ready to install.  After the 182 mb download, my wifi package was also empty.

I can't find any way that I could have prevented that large automatic download. Is there a way?  (It's true that it doesn't install until you approve it, but it downloads automatically.)

Suggested in the first answer is to only connect to wifi, download email and disconnect. That method won't work for me. Some of the emails are server generated alarms (I also kept push notifications from the Pingdom app enabled), therefor I was unable to disconnect from wifi except when checking email because I need the email to arrive in real-time.

What are the best practices when you take your iPhone with you on a cruise?  (it wasn't easy at all actually, there are a lot of controls to use when you don't want to use cellular data, but everything is designed to assume that WIFI is a giant unmetered pipe---not a restricted connection that you don't want to suck data from.)


texts: Can Time Machine restore an erased drive?

texts:
I tried upgrading OS from El Capitan to Sierra, but Sierra did not work so I used Time Machine restore to revert back. I didn't erase hard drive, just hooked external hard drive to Mac and chose to restore using Time Machine backup.

But now I notice that Mac is bit slower when activating apps. When starting up, it takes maybe 30 - 60 seconds longer to get LibreOffice and Firefox running. Is that normal?

I've been trying to find out if I could erase the drive and restore system again from Time Machine backup.

According to this, one has to erase Sierra completely, but I have no way to clean install El Capitan from scratch. Only thing I have is Time Machine back-up.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/ma...ierra-el-capitan-remove-macos-sierra-3581872/

My question is in 3 parts:

It doesn't really bother me by itself, but I got tiny worry that what if I weakened system, security or something like that by restoring El Capitan without erasing drive first?
Would it be possible to erase drive and then use Time Machine back-up to restore system WITHOUT installing OS first from another source?
(I don't have El Capitan anywhere so if just Time Machine alone can't restore drive, then I'll ignore the tiny lagging)
Should I make Time Machine back-up now, would the tiny slowing of system carry on to any future restores (in case I do clean system restore)?


texts: There is a way to add applications to a "always allow access"-list for a specific keychain entry. Those applications get read/write permissions to that entry. Is it possible to make keychain only grant readonly access to certain applications?


texts: Time in milliseconds since epoch in the terminal

texts:
How do I get the time since the epoch, in milliseconds, in the OSX terminal?

The Linux/Ubuntu equivalent is date +%s.%N:

Linux $ date +%s.%N
1403377762.035521859

Which does not work in my OSX terminal:

OSX $ date +%s.%N
1403377800.N


texts: iPhone: Cannot call or send SMS to a specific DDI/DID number

texts:
At some point (perhaps after an upgrade), one particular iPhone stopped being able to voice call or send SMS to another number using PSTN.

Functionality was OK using data, it affected only dialling via the local phone company. The calling phone had no problem calling any other number, the problem was confined to one specific number.

The receiving device also happens to be an iPhone. When the SIM's were swapped between the iPhones, full functionality returned, i.e. either phone could call the other OK.

How to fix this issue?


texts:
I deleted files from my Mac, but at the same time same files from another Mac with the same AppleID got deleted too. Also I got the backup for the files. But I want to change this for future. How to do it?
Also if I change the AppleID of my Mac then will the files and all data get erased on the other Mac too (there the AppleID will remain as the old one) as a result?


texts: Macbook Pro extremely slow when using video chat

texts:
My Macbook Pro, running on High Sierra, gets extremely slow whenever I'm using video chat. It happens both when using Skype and Zoom. Under normal conditions it's fast and smooth, but as soon as I use video chat things go south and the computer becomes unresponsive and sluggish.

I think what may be related to it is that I'm using both an external monitor and an iMac (via thunderbolt). But it's strange to me that it all functions correctly when I'm not on video chat, even when I have the laptop screen open as well.

Any ideas what could cause this?

The specs of my computer are:

Macbook Pro (retina, mid 2012) running on OSX 10.13.5
2.3 GHz i7
16GB RAM
256GB SSD
GeForce GT 650M


texts: Will heavy duty testing and development cause my MB Air's SSD to crash soon? How to prevent it?

texts:
I just recently bought a MacBook Air 2013 (i7 with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD drive). I am a programmer, and my daily jobs would involve a lot of testing on that machine, including setting up databases, indexing Solr-based indices, etc. I stopped on the Air primarily because it is lightweight, and the SSD drive gives it a performance boost. Yet after what I learned about the limited write cycles of SSD drives, it gets me concerned if I should really do heavy-duty systems testing on it, or I should outsource it to say, an external hard drive or something. If I set up my projects to run from an external HDD, would that save me from expiring the life of the SSD? And how much is it really?

I'd love to find out some tools to be able to observe the life of the SSD over time.

Any other programmers with MacBook Air out there? What is your experience?


texts:
I've got a gutted Mac Pro G3 tower which I'm thinking of building a machine into. What form factor should the motherboard be and what are some good starting points for parts?

I'm not necessarily looking into Apple parts per sé. I'd be fine installing Windows in there too.

EDIT:

The tower looks like this, except the front drive and panel is missing.


texts: How do I zoom without a trackpad in Xcode Instruments Time Profiler?

texts:
When using Xcode Instruments Time Profiler on my MacBook, I'm able to pinch to zoom in on the CPU measurements in the Swim-lane. However I cannot figure out how to do the equivalent on my iMac with no trackpad.

How can I zoom in on a Swim-lane without a trackpad?


texts: How can I add a Google Docs URL to my iOS home screen?

texts:
I know how to add an http://blahblah url to my iOS Home Screen using Safari.
I can fashion a URL like GoogleDocs://http://blahblah which will take me directly to the Docs app (not Safari).
My question is, how can I create a Home Screen icon for a GoogleDocs://http://blahblah url?


texts: What do I need to set up two DVI monitors on a 2011 Mac mini?

texts:
As a software developer who recently bought an iPhone, I knew it was just a matter of time before I started dicking around in the iOS apps space. Today Apple released a new line of Mac minis and I am going to buy one. I'd like to just buy a KVM switch and flip between my current two monitor PC setup and the Mac. What kind of adapters do I need for the Mac mini to be able to take two DVI outs?

I've been told that I can use a mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter with the Thunderbolt port then just a HDMI to DVI in the HDMI port, is that possible?


texts: iPhone - Where is the brightness/backlight level setting in the file system?

texts: I have an iPhone that was dropped in water. Once the backlight level goes below a certain point, the screen is completely black/useless. I need to go in iFile or some other file system browsing software to set the brightness level to 80% or something high. I've looked around and found the backlight level for SB Settings but I'm not sure if that will work. Anybody know where that setting is?


texts: OSX Mountain Lion - Login hangs after restart

texts:
Mac Book Pro purchased in November, 2012, running OSX 10.8.current (Mountain Lion).

I shut down all apps, and restarted the laptop.

After the reboot, I selected my account and provided my password. The laptop hung with the apple logo and the spinning gear for about two minutes.

I restarted again and logged in as Guest. No problems.

I restarted and tried my account again. The laptop has now been stuck on the spinning gear (not the beach ball) for 10 minutes.

My home directory is encrypted, but I don't get any messages saying the laptop can't access the filesystem.

(And, of course, I'd muted the speaker before I restarted, so I don't get the start up tone. I'm going to give this attempt a few more minutes before trying to boot into safe mode.)

This is a totally new type of problem for me. Does anyone have any hints on what to look at to see what might not be starting properly?

Thanks!

UPDATE 1

I couldn't manage to restart in Safe Mode (shift key). I did restart into Restore mode (Cmd-R) and was able to run Disk Utility. The disk itself passed all verify tests, the Encrypted LVM was inaccessible.

While in Restore mode, I picked Start-up Disk... from the Apple menu and provided the password for the encrypted LVM. That was accepted and the partition appeared.

After restarting, a test login is again hanging...


texts: New version of Keynote won't open old versions

texts:
When using a newer version of iWork software such as on Yosemite to open older documents and presentations, Pages reports "This document can’t be opened because it’s too old. To open it, save it with Pages ’09 first." and Keynote reports "This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old. To open it, save it with Keynote ’09 first." How can I open these files without finding and installing an old version of iWork?

Edit: The latest update, version 6.6 (2550) (as of October 16, 2015) opens Keynote '06 and '08 version files. I verified this on a file from 2007 and it works properly.


texts: Input not recognised when using Switch Control remotely

texts:
Because I support a few friends with their iOS devices, I've been trying to figure the best way to circumvent Apple's limitation of not being able to remotely control iOS, and right now I am THIS close.

The setup is simple. I use Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) to connect to and control my friend's Mac computer, which is USB connected to the iOS device so I can see the screen through QuickTime. From here I talk to my friend on the phone or chat to tell them what they should do as I see exactly what's going on on the screen.

The next level is when I activate this Accessibility feature called Switch Control on the remote Mac, which essentially lets you do actions on a LAN connected iOS device. And just when I thought I worked out my magic, it appears Switch Control won't recognise any keystroke or mouse clic that are not physically performed on the remote computer. Even the onscreen keyboard doesn't work ...damn!
If I create a switch button (trigger) remotely, the remote Mac will register it, but neither me or my friend can use the trigger for Switch Control. If the trigger is registered based on a physical input, my friend can use it, but I can't, even through the onscreen keyboard.

So it appears no matter what trigger you register, Switch Control will never recognise remote/virtual input for actual use of the triggers. However, I cannot believe there is no way to simulate that physical input so that Switch Control does listen to my input sent remotely through ARD.

This is the only one single way to remotely control an iOS device in the context of Apple actively not supporting it, and yet just that small little detail prevents it from functioning. I'm basically looking for a way to simulate physical input in a manner that would be recognised by Switch Control.

Note: jailbreak is not an option, and anyway Veency is no longer working as of iOS 12.


texts: Can I unload com.apple.mrt via launchd or otherwise remedy these errors?

texts:
I just realized that the job com.apple.mrt crashes every 10 seconds on my Mac.

What exactly is the aim of com.apple.mrt? Apparently it should be a "Malware Removal Tool".
Can I remove it from launchd (overrides.plist) ?

Here is my Console system.log :

31/07/2015 16:22:11,756 smd[180]: Could not remove job "com.apple.mrt": 150: Operation not permitted while kernel is in rootless mode
31/07/2015 16:22:11,769 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.mrt[590]) Service exited with abnormal code: 2
31/07/2015 16:22:11,769 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.mrt) Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

Config :

MacBook Pro (13" - mi-2012)
2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
OS X Le Capitan 10.11 (Beta 4 - build: 15A244d)


texts: MacOS Outlook 2019 how to make PDF body of email in 2020

texts: I googled a lot but couldn't find an answer. I want to send an email using outlook (latest) on Mac OS and I want to make the body of the email be a PDF. (not as an attachment).


texts: Is there a way to unlock to Home screen without swiping up?

texts: In short, I would like my iPhone X to go to the Home screen (first page of apps) immediately after Face ID unlocks my phone, without having to swipe up from the Notifications screen.


texts: Does anyone know of an app (on iOS, Android or any platform) that will allow me to place one phone in a part of my house that has good phone signal, and have it relay all calls to another device using my home's WiFi?


texts: usb drive very slow on mac, works fine on windows

texts: i have a 2015 macbook pro, with usb c ports that require an adapter. i have one usb drive that i use to transfer files between my macbook and an internet-incapable desktop pc, and everything i try to do with this usb on my mac takes a very long time - transferring a 1gb file can take twenty minutes, ejecting the drive properly can take ten, and dragging/dropping files, right clicking the drive, etc etc etc gives me the beach ball pretty often. i never have this issue on my pc - transfer speed is very fast, which seems to rule out a problem with the usb itself. im wondering if this is more likely to be an issue with my computer or the adapter.


texts: Why is my iCloud Keychain not syncing my passwords?

texts:
I just reinstalled a fresh copy of macOS Catalina (10.15.2) and set up iCloud with keychain turned in the iCloud settings. However, my Mac did not sync my WiFi networks or Safari passwords from other devices, when iCloud keychain was enabled for those devices. I have 2-factor authentication enabled. I also tried resetting my keychain by disabling it on all my devices and then re-enabling 1 by 1. I also tried signing in and out of iCloud and tried resetting my keychain by opening the Keychain Access app on my mac. How do I fix this issue?

iCloud Keychain refuses to setup on Catalina answers here didn't help me. I didn't get the ""Upgrade iCloud Security" Prompt either.

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT210642#macos10141 No fixes for this issue so far.


texts: How to show command of a process in activity monitor?

texts: I want to see the exact commands of some processes in activity monitor, as most linux process monitor can do. Is it possible with activity monitor?


texts:
Where does the standard iPhone weather app get it's data from?

Specifically, is there a single global server or does it use local sources depending on your location?


texts:
Am I just not seeing a way to search my iCloud keychain when I go to (iOS)
Settings>Safari>Passwords & AutoFill>Saved Passwords
?

The list is very long and they don't even give me a way to navigate quickly down the alphabet. I'm hoping that if search isn't currently available, they are going to add it soon.


texts: Diagnosing what's wrong with "vintage" iMac

texts:
I have a "vintage" iMac with the following spec:

I've been told by an official Apple store that they won't touch it and neither will any Apple resellers so it's left me with two options:

Buy a new iMac!
Fix it myself!

The problem I'm having is that when I turn the iMac on after it's warmed up it starts to make clicking/scratching noises. The screen flickers slightly and things struggle to load. I managed to run disk utility on it before these problems start and it coming up with lots of failures.

This all suggest to me it's the hard drive.

Is there anything else I can use to diagnose the specific problem? Would the above description point to a hard drive failure for you?

If that's the case I'm willing to spend £100 or so on a new hard drive (would this one be ok?) and attempt to fit it myself (following online guides!!).

Before I had problems, the iMac was running completely fine and not struggling with anything - even high spec games so you can see why I'm very reluctant to buy a new iMac... especially at £1500!

I feel like I'm being completely screwed over by Apple for not supporting a perfectly good machine, so much appreciated in advance for any help given!!


texts:
For some reason, my Mac keyboard always thinks that the "t" key is always being pressed. However as you can see I can still type in the letter t, but it comes out delayed compared to the other keys. I think it is a software bug as the key still works fine, but on some pages the t key just gets spammed. Oddly enough, shift+t won't give me an uppercase t, but all the other letters work fine (and my caps lock has been converted to a backspace, so I can't test that (by choice)). this has happened before, but typically goes away after a restart, but this one time a restart didn't help.

Edit: Currently on Macbook Air (1 generation ago)


texts:
I just got my iPhone 6 and everything works fine. It's just that whenever I recieve a text message, the notification on the lockscreen pops up and says who it's from and then  "to you"  right below it.

I know that the notification is to me so how can I turn this off so I don't have to read this before every message preview in my lockscreen? Any response would be greatly appreciated.


texts: Cant mount sparsebundle - volume check failed with error 7

texts:
I am unable to mount a sparsebundle from a Time Machine backup.
Error messsage says
No mountable file systems
So I've tried to mount it via hdiutil
Lukas MacBook ~ % hdiutil attach -nomount -noverify -noautofsck /Volumes/Samsung_T5/Maria\ -\ MacBook\ Pro.sparsebundle
/dev/disk3              GUID_partition_scheme
/dev/disk3s1            EFI
/dev/disk3s2            Apple_HFS

And then tried to repair it:
Lukas MacBook ~ % fsck_hfs -drfy /dev/disk3s2
journal_replay(/dev/disk3s2) returned 0
** /dev/rdisk3s2
    Using cacheBlockSize=32K cacheTotalBlock=65536 cacheSize=2097152K.
   Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-522.100.5).
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
   Invalid B-tree node size
(3, 0)
** The volume   could not be verified completely.
    volume check failed with error 7
    volume type is pure HFS+
    primary MDB is at block 0 0x00
    alternate MDB is at block 0 0x00
    primary VHB is at block 2 0x02
    alternate VHB is at block 7968505774 0x1daf5bfae
    sector size = 512 0x200
    VolumeObject flags = 0x07
    total sectors for volume = 7968505776 0x1daf5bfb0
    total sectors for embedded volume = 0 0x00
    CheckHFS returned -1317, fsmodified = 0

I've followed most of the popular solutions here, but no of them is working for me.
Is it alright to have a AHFS file system and then a EFI?
Thank you for any advice.
Cheers


texts:
Is there any way to set hours I want to see in Week view in Calendar?
I do not need hours marked with red ellipsis's and need only hours marked with blue rectangle.
If I try to resize window, then it compresses the whole view, i.e. everything becomes smaller and still shows hours I do not use...
How can I make Calendar to show only specified hours in Week view, which is most convenient in my daily activities - need to see the whole week at once.


texts: Boot Camp ‘saving support software’ holds indefinitely

texts:
So, there's quite a few other “Boot Camp Assistant's handling of the ‘Windows support software’ is terrible” questions; but as far as I can tell, none of them directly relate to my problem:

On a machine on which Boot Camp Assistant doesn't give the option to use external install media¹, I get stuck at the “Saving Windows support software …” step, when the progress-bar is at 100%:

Screenshot of Boot Camp stuck http://ell.io/i1l8hv+

I've left it sitting at that screen, this time around, for around 24 hours. I do have a rather large disk (2TB OWC Aura SSD), so I decided to give it some time … but it's pretty clear at this point that nothing is happening. (I'm also afraid to stop it; because last time I gave up on it, it took a solid hour to ‘remove created partitions.’ Took nearly as long to un-do, as I'd given it to do. :P)

To be clear, the download phase completed; it's stuck at the ‘Saving’ phase. Unlike old-school Boot Camp, I can't just uncheck the option and download the drivers manually; it forces me to go through this step.

So, tl;dr: Is there any way to skip the ‘downloading and saving drivers’ steps, or use pre-existing install media, or otherwise get Boot Camp working on a MacPro6,1, or "2013 Mac Pro"?

Mac-side: macOS Sierra 10.12
Windows-side: Windows 10 Pro 10.0.14393

Older Boot Camp, and current Boot Camp on some machines, gives you a list of checkboxes to decide what you want it to do. Unfortunately, current Boot Camp on the 2013 Mac Pro does not do this.

  “If the Select Tasks step doesn’t appear, you don’t need a USB flash drive or hard drive to install Windows. Follow the instructions in Install Windows on your Mac without using a USB hard drive or flash drive.”

I've also taken some additional information — current disk partitions, process-sample for Boot Camp Assistant (spoiler: it's sitting around doing nothing.), and etc: https://gist.github.com/ELLIOTTCABLE/5f0c13cbe38a7ab952b82ec11ae4ed2e


texts: Restoring my current Time Machine (Lion) with my DVD of Leopard?

texts:
I have bought a new HD and I want to remplace the one I have in my MBP. In wonder if I will be able to restore my current backup made by Time Machine, since I've upgraded my OS to Lion (Using Apple Store). So the only DVD I have is the one I got with my laptop. I think it's Leopard.

Are those 2 versions of Time Machine compatible?


texts: When my mac is tethered to my iPhone it can't resolve localhost

texts:
My broadband internet died on the weekend and so, in order to get some work done I am tethering my MacBook Pro to my iPhone.

I am running a number of servers within docker containers.

If I deactivate the tethering and just connect to my usual wifi (despite it not having any ability to connect to the outside world due to the broadband being down) then host localhost works fine. But while tethered I can't resolve localhost at all. Running host localhost returns Host localhost not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

I have tried this on my other Mac too with the same result, which is weird as I regularly travel and work via tethering off my iPhone and it's never been a problem before.

What could cause this to happen and how do I debug / fix it?


texts:
On macOS and other desktop systems you can override the CSS from a website and add yor preferences -- change the header font, line spacing, text colour etc.
Is there away to do this automatically per site on the iPad?
There is a question Is CSS injection possible on iPad using Safari? similar but this requires opening the page first then running a shortcut for each page. The desktop addins apply the styles by domain name so no extra user involvement.


texts: Is it possible to read out the "Album Artist" ID3 tag with spotlight query?

texts: I know that a spotlight query is capable of reading the "Artist" ID3 tag of mp3 files but is it also possible to read out (speak) the "Artist Album" ID3 field? This source doesnt say anything about it?


texts: Does replacing an iPhone/iPad battery reset the battery stats?

texts:
I have purchased a refurbished iPad. It is from a Apple-certified repair shop, but I understand this is not the same as Apple refurbished.

On a MacBook with an internal battery, I can see in System Information that the battery still has its own firmware and serial number. Is it similar for iOS devices? Does the device know if the battery has been replaced and will this reset battery stats such as loadcycles?

The battery appears to have ~200 loadcycles and only 80% capacity, indicating it is not in good condition.

However, I have noticed that the charge level regularly goes above 100% when finishing the charge, which might make sense if the charging firmware was "surprised" by a new battery.

My Google-fu was unable to find any battery benchmarks for the iPad 4. (Retina iPad 2012), which I might use to compare the battery's actual performance. I get about 15 hours of screen on time, which seems good.


texts: How can I disable gestures on a particular workspace?

texts:
Is it possible to disable trackpad gestures I don't want to trigger on a particular workspace?

I have virtualbox fullscreen on one of my workspaces and I'd like for mouse gestures to not trigger when I am on that workspace.


texts: How to remove keyboard shortcut for app?

texts:
Specifically, I am used to typing Command-1 in a WordPress admin area to specify some text as a Header 1, (and Command-2 to specify Header 2), but when I do this now in Chrome, that command seems to change the current browser tab.

Is there a way to edit or remove the chrome keyboard commands so those commands will work with WordPress, (I am assuming that the Chrome commands over-ride the WordPress admin ones)?

Using an iMac running OS X Yosemite.


texts: Does the iOS Camera Roll contain all of my photos and videos, incl. what's in my albums?

texts:
I have tons of photos in my iPhone Camera Roll. I have also created albums and moved photos around from the camera roll to different albums.

Is it true that the Camera Roll actually contains "all" the photos and videos I have?

I ask because I am going to make a copy of all my photos and do not want to use iCloud etc.

If I just copy everything in my Camera Roll to my PC hard drive, will that get everything I have in all the albums I have created?

Or must I copy the Camera Roll and all the Albums to ensure I get everything?

I know the organization or my photos will be goofy etc, but I just want all my photos and videos from my iPhone on my PC without using any cloud based services.


texts: Does hard disk continue to run while sleeping?

texts:
The question is pretty simple. I just wanted to know for sure but couldn't find an answer on google.

Does the hard drive continue to "run" while the computer is asleep?

I'd like to know if it does and if that's the case why does it need to?


texts: MacBook Pro not turning on (logo and no progress bar)

texts: My MacBook Pro was working just fine until I tried logging in and it would just freeze after I enter my password. I tried rebooting while pressing Command ⌘ + R but it just shows the Apple logo without a progress bar.


texts: How do I unsubscribe from only emails about the Apple TV app?

texts:
I'm trying to unsubscribe only from emails about TV like this one:

The unsubscribe link takes me to this page, which only has an option for disabling all iTunes emails and not just TV:


texts: Disable double-click to maximize in OS X Yosemite

texts:
In OS X Yosemite, a new feature is that when you double-click on the title bar of an application window, the window will maximize: http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/28/maximize-zoom-windows-os-x-mac/

Is there a way to disable this behavior?  I am accidentally double-clicking and maximizing terminal and VirtualBox VM windows, and this sometimes causes problems.


texts: How do I execute a bash script that requires root privileges?

texts:
I have this script lines from my ISP:

sudo bash
echo "plugin L2TP.ppp">>/etc/ppp/options
echo "l2tpnoipsec">>/etc/ppp/options

It works if I paste line by line into Terminal.
I want to create a *.command file and run it by double-clicking. But all I get is password prompting and then empty bash window. The resulting "options" file is empty.

I tried this:

#!/bin/bash

echo "plugin L2TP.ppp">>/etc/ppp/options
echo "l2tpnoipsec">>/etc/ppp/options

I get:

  /etc/ppp/options: Permission denied

I think I need to use some command to get root privileges from inside bash.


texts: Can't install php56-mcrypt with homebrew

texts:
I use Homebrew on my testing server on OS X.
I have php56, autoconf, and mcrypt installed through homebrew.

I was successful doing this on a different Mac but I am not having any luck this time.

When I type:

brew install php56-mcrypt

like I did on the other mac, it says:

Already downloaded: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/php56-mcrypt-5.6.7 ==> /usr/local/opt/php56/bin/phpize
2015-05-13 14:19:26 -0700

/usr/local/opt/php56/bin/phpize

Despite it stating that is "already installed", when going into /usr/local/Cellar/ there is no folder called "php56-mcrypt" like it had on my other Mac.

I have not done anything abnormal that I am aware of. What can I do? Is re-installing the best option?


texts: Yosemite Disk Utility: You may only split this volume in two

texts:
I just upgraded to 10.10- Yosemite. I have an external 4TB hard drive. These are the problems I see with Disk Utility:

No more than two partitions are allowed.
Changing the partition size I can only use the slider, so I can't enter a number for the size of the selected partition.
Changing the name of the parent partition is not possible.

I tried to repair the drive, that didn't change anything. I can try to reformat, or even format the drive on Linux to something else and then see what DU says about that. Any ideas what is the problem here or is this a case of a bad release by Apple?


texts: Clearing search in Mac Mail for 11.1 Big Sur by selecting another mailbox

texts:
Previous to Big Sur I could clear the search field in Mac Mail by selecting a different mailbox. Now in Big Sur when I select another mailbox the search is still applied.
Is there any way to change the functionality back to clearing the search when changing the focused mailbox?


texts: How to re-download Yosemite for creating second partition?

texts:
I have a paid Apple Developer account, and want to create a Beta-Partition with Yosemite.

I thought the way is pretty straight forward:

Downloading Yosemite
Install it
Choose second partition

But I cannot even download it from the App Store. I am on OS X 10.10.2 and want to try 10.10.3.

How can I create a Beta Partition after already having 10.10.2 installed?

If I boot in recovery mode and re-download Yosemite, will it delete my hard drive? Can I re-download and then choose my second partition?


texts: autossh in background does not work anymore

texts:
Prior to my updating to macOS Sierra, autossh worked just fine. Now, when I run it the ssh session alway terminated immediately. This is the command that I use:

autossh -f -M 8880 -N -y -L 8889:localhost:8888 my-server

When I look at the log-file, I get the following output:

2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: checking for grace period, tries = 0
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: starting ssh (count 1)
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: ssh child pid is 15329
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: check on child 15329
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15328]: set alarm for 600 secs
2016/09/29 10:54:17 autossh[15329]: execing /usr/bin/ssh
2016/09/29 10:54:21 autossh[15328]: check on child 15329
2016/09/29 10:54:21 autossh[15328]: ssh exited with error status 255; restarting ssh

This goes on and on. However, when I run the same command without the -f option (not running in the background), everything works fine. This looks like the problem described here, but I'm not using a custom id.

What could be the cause for this, and how to fix it?


texts: Exception to smart quote substitution for one word

texts: I have System Preferences|Keyboard enabled for smart quotes. Unfortunately, this tends to turn Hawai‘i into Hawai’i even when I use Option–]. Any suggestion how to get one word the way I want? (Not interested in global disable of smart quotes.)


texts: 'ls' command not working on mac OS Catalina

texts:
Ever since updating my mac to OS Catalina I have noticed quite a few changes were made to the terminal.

Upon opening the terminal there is always the entry:

The default interactive shell is now zsh.
To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.
For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

I've noticed that when using ls,  instead of listing the items within the current directory, it activated ghostscript. In a flurry of frustration I uninstalled ghostscript using the opensource script from https://gist.github.com/gwerbin/dcba755b0484423e9e45.

Now when I run ls, I get the following output:

GPL Ghostscript 9.16: Can't find initialization file gs_init.ps.

How do I repair things, so that I can get ls or at least have a new command dir that lists the directory?


texts: I need to log into apple mail to read new messages received from outlook

texts: I have a macbook Air and want to run outlook mail instead of using Apple mail. I have set up outlook as imap and it seems to be working fine, i can send and receive messages but for some reason I can't view them, they appear and then disappear instantly. I'm having to use Apple email to read my messages. I have tried syncing and everything I know, MS were useless. Do I need to remove Apple email? Can anyone advise please


texts: iPhone no longer plays music/audiobook/podcast when I press the headphone button

texts:
Since I replaced my 3GS with a 4S (and iOS 7) stopping and restarting music/audiobooks/podcasts doesn't work any more.

Basically, instead of pressing the button on the headphone microphone once to continue playing what I was listening to earlier, I now have to log into the phone, select one of two audio players and there press play to continue playing.

Have I configured something wrong or did I just lose that feature?


texts: How to upgrade Apache 2.2 to 2.4 in Mac OS X Mavericks

texts:
My ISP has upgraded the server to Apache 2.4.9 from 2.2.xx. It has broken a couple things in my setup and I want to bring my local copy of Apache 2.2.26 to 2.4.9 so that I can test locally.

I've been trying to find some information online, but I can’t seem to find a step by step instructions on how to do it, and mostly I find recommendations of NOT doing it. Instead I find people suggesting Homebrew, MacPorts, or Fink.

Given that I have a number of sites working with local.xxxx.com and it all works well (edit locally, test by visiting their corresponding url with the local. prefix) and it is all pretty convenient and nice, I would like to continue doing the same, but with Apache 2.4.9. Any advice as to what's the best way to do this, or a pointer to instructions would be greatly appreciated.


texts:
I have a large number of items in iBooks. Some are ePub, and there are lots of work related PDFs. In total, I have around 20k documents that I want to sync to my iPad to carry around as a convenient source of reference.

Unfortunately I appear to have hit a limit with iBooks. I want to add another 1k docs. They import into iBooks successfully and initially they show in the UI however at some point the bkAgentService seems to have a brainstorm and the docs I can see in the UI and in iTunes reverts to what was there, so I lost the ability to access the most recent docs in either iBooks or iTunes.

Anyone any ideas on this? Also, bkAgentService takes up a LOT of CPU for some time when I open iBooks. Presumably it doesn't like the number of docs I have, though Apple says the size of the library is limited only by available storage?


texts: Command Line method to backup using two Time Machine disks

texts:
Does anyone know of a command line method to select the active Time Machine disk? I would like to alternate between two backup disks for redundancy. I would like this to be automated, presumably via cron, perhaps launchd.

There is an AppleScript method to swap disks, but I am doing remote system administration and cannot rely on GUI scripting. I would presume there is sufficient control of Time Machine using the defaults command, but am not sure how to achieve this yet.


texts: Why are zip file sizes different in finder compared to Google or Amazon Drive?

texts: I was wondering why file sizes of my zipped archives (.zip) are inconsistent. A file that shows in the finder (macOS) as 9.17 GB shows up as being 8.54 GB on an Amazon Drive (same thing with Google Drive).


texts: Any way to get back itunes music after losing it?

texts: I upgrading my version of windows and I forgot to backup my iTunes music, is there a way I can re-download it from iTunes without buying it all again?


texts: Size of /Users folder is way too low, where is my data?

texts:
My client called me because she had spilled some water on her MacBook Pro Retina.

We did all the standard things: turned it off, unplugged it, turned it upside down, etc.

She brought it to me and I'm having a look. I have little faith that the keyboard/logic board will be ok, but I had no reason to believe the SSD would be a problem.

I plugged the SSD into my external enclosure, attached it to my Mac and voilà! "Macintosh HD" (999.33 GB) appeared on my desktop. Yay! I open it up and I see this:

But....Users folder is only 32.2 MB?! This computer was in active use, so Family Photos, Mail, Documents, etc.

So, then I looked at the Get Info for the disk:

This makes no sense to me. Until now, my belief was that either the SSD would be unmountable or it would be 100% fine.

This is clearly somewhere in between.

Has anyone else encountered this? If so, was anyone able to retrieve data?


texts: How to make root volume writeable again in Catalina?

texts:
After the installation of Catalina all User created folders from root are moved into a separate folder and the root folder is made readonly, containing only system default folders.

How is it possible to undo this and to make the root folder writeable again?


texts: How do I remove songs from my iPhone 5s running IOS 8.3?

texts:
There is a U2 album on my iPhone which I didn't download & isn't on my Mac & I am unable to remove it.

I deleted all Music app storage from the phone, then re-synched with 1 playlist from iTunes on the Mac, but the album still appears on the phone under genres, artists & albums but not playlists.


texts: Creating a Windows partition on an external drive

texts:
I am trying to basically add a Windows 10 bootable system to an external hard drive because I haven't the space on my internal to do it. I have a mid-2013 MB Pro running Sierra.

So I tried the steps here:
https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/31/how-windows-10-mac-boot-camp-external-drive-video/

Problem was, the screens didn't match -- I didn't get a "Windows Easy install" prompt, and I suspect it's because I am using VMware 11 and that guide is a couple of years old.

But I need some real help. WHen I last tried this I got the windows screen (the virtual machine appeared to be working) and then it said it couldn't find the operating system. I wasn't sure what to do,

I have seen similar questions here but I am VERY STUPID.

Problem is, I can't seem to find a step-by-step that matches what I see on my screens.

For example VMware asks if I want to use UEFI (WTF is that?) or legacy BIOS. I chose Legacy after some googling which said my mac won't support the latter.

So, here's what I need: if anyone has a link to a step by step tutorial that covers VMware 11 that would help.

I also would like to get a better idea of where certain files should be. For example, I have a little USB stick that I THINK is supposed to be where I download the Windows installer and support software, but I am not entirely sure. I downloaded the support software using BootCamp and moved it onto my desktop before having bootcamp turn it into what I think is the installer. But I really haven't the foggiest notion of whether I am doing things right.

SOmebody help please. This is becoming entirely confusing for me. I even messaged the author of the original tutorial.


texts:
I bought a new iMac (2020 and Catalina) with 64G of RAM and when I plugged my second monitor (an old Cinema Display 23", I get ghosting on that monitor. Any fixes?
Thanks


texts: How can I upgrade to any macOS version that is no longer available in the Apple app store?

texts:
I am using a Mac Mini (Late 2012) that is running macOS 10.9.5 (Mavericks). I avoided upgrading to macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) when it was first released because of all of the stability issues surrounding it and have stuck to macOS 10.9.5. Never “purchased” or even attempted to download it via the Apple app store.

Now that macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) has been released, what can I do to upgrade to macOS 10.10.5 if/when I wish to? When I am in the Apple app store the only option I see macOS 10.11 as an upgrade option; screenshot below.

The logic is, I assume that macOS 10.10.5 is more stable that macOS 10.10 when it was first released, so I would like to put a 10.10.5 upgrade on my plate of options if/when I have the time and patience to deal with. I would like to avoid macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) for a while if possible.

Is my only option at this point to download a macOS 10.10.5 installer from some non-Apple website somewhere or does Apple have any accommodations to allow end-users to download macOS 10.10.5 from them in some way?

I see this OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 Update as well as this OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 Combo Update is available for download, but would any/either of those be useful to someone like me running macOS 10.9.5 in any way? I assume those updates are only useful for someone already running 10.10 already, correct?


texts:
I have both a GPG key and an SSL certificate. I am able to sign emails by choosing OpenPGP or S/MIME in the upper right corner of the window:

I can then activate the signing by clicking the appropriate icon:

Now my question(s):

is it possible to sign by default? (always unless specified)
is it possible to sign by default only for a given account?

Edit 1

The ideal setup with three accounts would be

account 1 always signs with S/MIME (the address is in the S/MIME certificate)
account 2 always signs with GPG (the address is in the GPG certificate)
account 3 do not sign (the address is not present in any certificate)

Edit 2

The priority is the S/MIME certificate, I could also live without GPG where only account 1 is using the S/MIME certificate by default.

Edit 3

I was now able to set S/MIME as the default (see Define the security method to be used, in the GPGMail 2 hidden settings FAQ). When I then switch to account 2 (the one with the GPG key) the default falls back to GPG (as the address of account 2 is not present in the S/MIME certificate).

defaults write org.gpgtools.gpgmail DefaultSecurityMethod -int 2

So far so good, now I just have to find out how to sign by default with S/MIME (and not with GPG)


texts: Numbers function that returns the location for the current cell

texts:
It appears that Numbers does not have user defined functions so I am writing a rather complicated expression in Emacs and then pasting it into the cell to use as an equation.

I'd like to reference in the expression a cell relative to the cell that the equation is in.  Looking at Apple's function list I see functions in the "Reference" section where I can derive another location if I had a location to start with... thus the question:

Is there a function that returns the current cell's location?

It may be that there is a notation rather than a function to refer to either the current cell or a cell relative to the current cell.  I'm searching the help for Numbers for that as well.

Edit:

For clarification, here is the equation I'm creating in Emacs:

IF(ISERROR(STOCKH("AAPL", "close", TODAY()−30−0)),
   IF(ISERROR(STOCKH("AAPL", "close", TODAY()−30−1)),
      IF(ISERROR(STOCKH("AAPL", "close", TODAY()−30−2)),
         IF(ISERROR(STOCKH("AAPL", "close", TODAY()−30−3)),
            TODAY()−30−4,
            TODAY()−30−3),
         TODAY()−30−2),
      TODAY()−30−1),
   TODAY()−30−0)

This is finding a date that is approximately one month ago (30 days) where the stock market was open.  I try today - 30 (days) and if there is a stock price on that day, then I return today - 30.  If the test fails, I try today - 31, today - 32, ... up to today - 34 which covers any three or four day weekend.

I want to do this but replace the 30 with 7 (for a week ago), 91 (for last quarter), 182 for six months ago, and 365 for one year ago.

Rather than compose each of these (which I've done but I'd like a simpler way to do it), I'd like to replace the "30" in the equation above with a relative cell reference such as the cell in the same row as the cell with the equation but in the previous column.  I would then put a 30 in that cell in this instance and I would put 7, 91, 182, ... in the referenced cell in the other instances.

To recap, I'd like to just paste the equation I compose in Emacs three or four places and then put a number such as 30 in the cell next to the equation.


texts: iTunes persistently requires re-authorization. Why?

texts:
I'm trying to listen to an album I own on iTunes, on my desktop iMac.
Somehow, I am subject to all sorts of authorization prompts:

I’m frustrated iTunes prevents me to play my song that I own, from the album I own.
Even Apple itself admits this album has previously been auth'd to play - as can be seen from the last screen shot. But no matter how many times I authorize it I see the same notification pop-up.
If someone can explain this it'd be great. Not being able to play music I own is not cool.


texts: How do I retrieve stats about my iTunes Match account?

texts:
I wonder how I can get details on my iTunes Match account. Especially I am interested in how many songs were uploaded to the cloud. Even better: which songs are uploaded, wich ones were matched with iTune songs.

EDIT: I just found out that a smart playlist would help for that. But then I noticed that I really am interested in "how many songs can I still add to my iCloud until I reach the 25,000 songs limit"?