texts: Can you determine exactly when iMac was disconnected from power?

texts:
(This is not just question about when a normal power failure occurred)

My 2017 iMac was stolen today during a break-in, but the internal hard drive was dead so it was running off of an external SSD. They unplugged everything including the external drive and left it behind. I'm trying to figure out if there is a system log that keeps an ongoing record with enough time resolution to figure out close to exactly when the power was unplugged.

I can't boot it up, but I can look through the file system on another Mac. I was able to find a couple of plist files updated most recently, but it only gives me a several-hour window and I'd like to get more accurate if possible. I'm was running Catalina and I'm not able to find anything more recent in ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/

Are there any very low-level system processes that might have a record? Something like cron (though I wasn't running any scheduled jobs)?


texts: I want to change the sound of outgoing mail on my Macbook but I seem not have permissions and have yet to find a work around, any ideas?

texts:
2015 macbook Pro on Catalina 10.15.7
I was hoping the simple fix here was all I needed to do: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3239319
But it doesn't work. It seems I am unable to edit anything into the Systems folder on my Macbook's HD. I have attempted several ways of granted myself permissions but none have worked.
I Googled what to do to add permission to perform this action:
https://support.apple.com/guide/directory-utility/change-privileges-diru49b04765/mac
With this method, when I add my own username to the list and save it, then go back to check if it's still there, it's gone. It seems like it requires a domain input and not my username, so maybe that's not the right route...
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/permission-files-a-mac-disk-mchlp1204/mac
Here, 'the “Ignore ownership on this volume” checkbox' does not appear for me. Maybe there is another place I can find it?
After both of these routes ended in dead ends for me I'm not sure what to try next. Anyone have an idea? I'm assuming someone has done this before, shouldn't be that hard, right?...
Edit1:
This is the message I get when I try to give myself permissions to add sound files to the HD:

The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission.

I used the terminal command "csrutil disable" from this YouTube video but it did not help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8L6l068q-s
Edit2:
I'm trying to add my username to the list of permissions in the "Sharing and Permissions" section of the "Get Info" window but it also gives me the message above^. First Aid on the the disks also did not work....


texts: Is there a way to overline text in Pages for the iPad?

texts:
I use my iPad for note taking in my statistics class and I need to create an overline for the sample mean (which has a line over an  x  called x-bar) and I can't find a way to get it to work in Pages.

I was able to get the Greek keyboard for all the other math symbols I needed, but this one I can't figure out.


texts:
I would always like to use the GUI version of entering my GPG passphrase. Currently my pinentry program is set the same on my laptop as my desktop. But the desktop always asks for my passphrase on the command line, and my laptop always asks using the GUI.

What do I need to set to force the use of the GUI on the desktop?

Current ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf

pinentry-program /usr/local/MacGPG2/libexec/pinentry-mac.app/Contents/MacOS/pinentry-mac
default-cache-ttl 600
max-cache-ttl 7200

Current ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf

default-key 26A32A76
require-cross-certification
keyserver-options auto-key-retrieve
keyserver hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net
auto-key-locate hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net
keyserver-options no-honor-keyserver-url
comment GPG
cert-digest-algo SHA512
default-preference-list SHA512 SHA384 SHA256 SHA224 AES256 AES192 AES CAST5 ZLIB BZIP2 ZIP Uncompressed
personal-digest-preferences SHA512 SHA384 SHA256 SHA224
no-emit-version
use-agent


texts: What is this progress bar, after initial boot, before login, on High Sierra?

texts:
This progress bar shows up after POST (and initial firmware boot?), but before the login prompt. The drive is a brand new SSD (from WD and initialized properly), so I'm really doubtful it's an fsck issue. The OS is a brand new High Sierra install, and showed up both before and after updates.

This is not a firmware or other update bar - I've seen those during the updates and there is an annotation to indicate those bars' sources. I have already reset the PRAM/NVRAM.

What is causing this progress bar? (I'm concerned, as the previous drive failed after this sort of bar began showing up, and the same bar is showing up on a MacBook Air during the same phase of startup...)


texts: Does the iPhone 6 "CPU-throttling" feature stop after the battery is replaced?

texts:
There is recent news (acknowledged by Apple) of a feature in some software versions of iOS that reduces the current usage of the iPhone6 and 6S when the battery ages and is less able to supply current, and this makes sense. It tries to prevent the phone from suddenly shutting down when the battery can not supply the required current.

I've suffered from those shut-downs first hand by trying to get the last few weeks out of a clearly-dead battery - which is unadvisable to say the least!

Is it known for a fact if this feature reinstates the phone to original performance and speed after the battery is replaced?


texts:
I'm saving data to iCloud in my app using iCloud Documents capability, however I'm not using the Documents folder, instead I'm hiding my files in another folder i.e. User'siCloudContainer/MyFolder.

I've uploaded some .plist files to this folder but when I receive them using another device they've been given a .icloud extension. What does this mean and how can I get my original .plist files?

EDIT: It seems that these files have been wrapped by NSFileWrapper during cloud synchronisation.


texts: If an app runs on the iPhone 4, will it run on the 4th generation iPod touch?

texts:
I've been developing an iOS application, and I've confirmed that it works fine on the iPhone 4. I have never tested it in a 4th generation iPod touch.

Recently I distributed the app to several testers (using a service called TestFlight). Only two of them are having problems downloading/installing, and they happen to be 4th generation iPod touch users.

So this leads me to my question - will an app that can run on the iPhone 4 be able to do so on a 4th generation iPod touch? Maybe their devices can't download/install the app because they actually can't run it.

The question at
 http://store.apple.com/us/question/answers/ipod/will-all-the-iphone-apps-work-on-an-ipod-touch/QTH2T4XUYF29DAUUA says

  Most apps will work on the iphone and the ipod touch but some apps
  will require things that only the ipad or iphone has.

What are those specific things that an iPhone 4 may have that are lacking on a 4th generation iPod touch?

The app doesn't really do anything fancy. It uses Game Center, it has In-App purchase, an accelerometer... All of that seems to be supported by the iPod touch.


texts: I am still on Catalina 10.15.7 and just did the latest security and Safari updates today. I would post the versions, but not sure where to look for them. Anyhow, now on boot up I get the Apple startup chime which I do not like. I've read that apple put in back with Big Sur - but I don't have that.  Can someone tell me how to disable the startup chime? Some people online are saying that there should be an option in Sound Preferences but I don't see that either. I'm guessing I can mute, but I only want to disable the startup sound not all sounds.


texts: Homebrew - How do I list all unlinked formulas?

texts: How do I list all installed but unlinked formulas of Homebrew?


texts: History commands render incorrect on Bash Vi mode

texts:
I'm having this werid and really annoying issue in bash vi-mode.
Env:
Mac 10.9.2, iTerm 2 1.0 or Terminal.app, $TERM={screen-256color|xterm-256color|xterm|vt}
Repro steps:

Run some long commands (like 'some_long_commands_long_long')
Press Esc and then press k.

The issue is:

I do see "some_long_commands_long_long" on my command line. But the cursor is not located at the beginning, instead it's on the 12nd char, see screenshot

If I press A to append some other text, the cursor will go beyond the command, which means the REAL command is start from where the cursor is located at the first place, the rendering is wrong.

I searched on google but ended up with nothing..... Anyone has a better idea about this? Thanks a lot...


texts: How can I upload high-res photos to Facebook from my iPad

texts:
I've bought the New iPad and have been using iPhoto to upload my pictures to Facebook. However, when I view them the quality doesn't look good. When browsed from the desktop Facebook site, the site does not provide a high quality version to download either.

How can I upload high quality images to Facebook from my iPad?


texts: Will Windows 7 want two license keys if I go Bootcamp + Parallels?

texts:
I read that Parallels 6+ can use Bootcamp installations of Windows, and I'd like to go this route. But I've read reports that Windows will detect a major hardware change significant enough to ask for a new product key.

Does anyone have experience with this? I'm not asking about legal issues, I'm mostly interested in how Windows will behave. With a single license for Windows, can I install it using Bootcamp, and use that installation with Parallels?


texts: Start QuickTime and set camera to iPhone from command line

texts:
I'm attempting to start QuickTime from AppleScript and select the camera of my iPhone like I do from QuickTime. I can't seem to make it change the camera.
The script I have now is:

tell application "QuickTime Player"
    set newMovieRecording to new movie recording
    tell newMovieRecording
        set camera to "iPhone"
        start
        delay 10 --(seconds)
        stop
    end tell
end tell

Of course the part of setting the camera to iPhone is not working.


texts: Make TextMate run php from a different binary, not the original php

texts:
I work with php and postgre, and since the stock php doesn't come with postgre I had to install a different php version.

So I installed php5 from this website: http://php-osx.liip.ch

It's a quick install, just downloaded php5 and its modules and put them in a different directory, now everything works, except the TextMate's "php run".

I couldn't find where TextMate makes the call to the php and I wanna change it, any ideas?

Thanks.


texts:
Whenever I try emptying my Trash, the progress bar freezes at a specific point.
I narrowed down the problem to a folder containing a mercurial repository:

localhost:~ dennis$ cd .Trash/Mercurial.1/xardias_cfg/.hg/store/
localhost:store dennis$ ls -la

The last command does not do anything. It just blocks and does not return to the shell.
Removing the folder has the same problem. Trying to send CTRL-C to the process does not do help either.

Disk verification in the disk utility does not show any errors.

Does anyone have an idea what might be wrong or any directions how I can find out?

Thanks a lot!
Dennis

PS: It might be worth mentioning that the drive is a 240GB Kingston SSD drive.


texts: Does a deactivated iPhone 4 still have GPS capability?

texts:
I just got my iPhone 5, and I deactivated my iPhone 4. I am wondering if I can keep my iPhone 4 as a iPod that I run with.  Question is can, my Nike+ app still accurately track my runs?

I would much rather continue using my iPhone 4 running equipment (special case, armband, etc) instead of going to buy new stuff.


texts: Audio Focus like capabilities for Mac OS

texts:
Android has Audio Focus, a feature that allows apps to request control of audio output before playing any audio. This ensures that multiple apps don't play over each other. The interrupted app could choose to pause or blur down its audio's volume.
Just wondering whether this is possible on macOS (I am using Mojave). I know that Google chrome introduced this feature but it works between chrome tabs. It would be much more convenient if this were an OS level feature.
I'd love to know whether a) it exists officially or maybe b) someone has worked on a workaround for this?


texts: My RAM was bad ("three beeps" bad) until shuffled

texts:
I've got an early 2011 13" i7 MBP, OS X 10.10.3 (the public beta version before the one released last night) with 10 GB of RAM – one of the original 2 GB modules in the bottom slot and an 8 GB module that's now a few months old in the top slot. Yesterday morning, I opened my computer to reveal a black screen after it had just been working a few minutes ago. I tried to turn it off and back on, and ended up getting the three-beep pattern that indicates bad RAM. I opened up my computer's back, and here's what I tried (and what happened when I attempted to power on after trying it):

Pulling out and reinserting the RAM - no change.
Pulling out the 8 GB and trying to boot with just the 2 GB - no change
Pulling out the 2 GB and using just the 8 GB in the top RAM slot - no change
Putting the 8 GB in the bottom slot - it booted fine!
Adding in the 2 GB in the top slot -
no problem!

"No trouble found." -Apple Hardware Test (both basic and extended) last night

So, here's my question: How'd my RAM spontaneously go bad enough to cause the beeps of death, and how'd the solution end up lying in switching which module goes in which slot?


texts: I have two users. In "Get Info" I shared a User1 folder with the User2. But how can I access the folder from the User2 account?


texts: Do >iOS8 devices randomize Bluetooth-MAC address

texts: iOS8 has brought the randomization of the WiFi MAC-address. My question is if the Bluetooth MAC-address is also randomized in the same manner on iDevices?


texts:
I have a MacBook Pro 13" 2015 (v10.14.3). When logging in (after startup) I can see the "looking for WiFi networks" icon on the menu bar. Shortly after it turns off.
In System Preferences.app I can press the turn WiFi on button, but it  does nothing.
Weird circumstances mentioning. We had some severe internet issues yesterday and my internet provider fixed it. Not sure what that means, or if that has anything to do with my issue as my macbook can connect to the browser, but not the Mail app. iPad connects without any issue. (I believe this problem is on my Mac.) Note that this is the only mac computer (with some iOS devices) in the network.


texts: Can I have an audio stream that plays continuously regardless of what user is logged in?

texts:
(I suspect the short answer is "no," but I wanted to make sure.)

I have two accounts on my MBA (work and personal). During the work day, the computer is also playing my music. When I need to switch to the personal account for something, the music stops (iTunes actually pauses itself, but other players that don't pause also lose the ability to generate audio output).

Is there any way to "get root" on the audio output, so to speak, so that I can have audio playing regardless of which account I'm logged into?

(I realize this presents some UI conundrums as well because it's unlikely that a process running with sufficient privileges could easily present itself as a normal app. But if it has to be a background daemon that I control via shell scripts, so be it!)


texts: Change the default zoom level for new documents in Excel 2016 for Mac

texts:
How do I change the default zoom level for new documents in Excel 2016 for Mac? I looked online but found a lot of conflicting information. Also, most tutorials online seem to be for the 2011 version rather than the 2016 version.

The default zoom is 100% but I'd like to change it to 150%.


texts: Can you 'drag and drop' text and drop formatting at once?

texts: I'd like need to drag and drop heaps of texts between documents, and rather copy only the text, without formatting. Is there any way, for example by pressing some modifier key while releasing the mouse button?


texts: Can't Delete Video Files from my Macbook Pro hard drive

texts: My Macbook Pro hard drive is full. I have attempted to delete video files from All My Files but they won't delete. I also found that several files with just audio from many of my videos are also there. When I try to move them to the trash, they go to the trash but then another copy is made. How do I permanently delete video and photo files?


texts: I recently got Keynote 6.0 and I'm having trouble animating a gif in it. Using Insert > Choose... easily adds the gif to the slide, but without animation. I have searched and found other sources (example) which all seem to point to using the "Quicktime Inspector" to work with the animation of a gif. Unfortunately, the Quicktime Inspector no longer seems to exist in version 6.0 and I can't seem to find the solution otherwise. Any suggestions? Thank you much!


texts:
I've opted for disk encryption during install of El Capitan (v10.11.6) on my Macbook Air.

Logged in from my admin account (not root), I added a new user to manage a second iTunes account (which I thoughtlessly created and tremendously complicated my iPhone-Macbook activities).

Amazingly, this user has been added to the first login screen after restart (see image). Logging in from this screen, I can bypass the disk encryption password, view the System and User directories, and run apps installed at the root level.

How can adding a new user bypass full Disk Encryption?


texts: How to detect locked screen / login-session from a script?

texts:
I am looking a way for a script (either bash or AppleScript, doesn't matter) to detect whether the state of the screen or the user login session is locked or not (i.e. the user will need to type in its credential to get back to her/his session).

This is different than detecting whether screen saver is on, which is already answered in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1390123/, as active screen saver is not always the same as locked session.

Do you have any suggestion? Thanks!


texts: How to check if mac user uses Time Machine?

texts:
I want to know if a mac user uses Time Machine
so I can tell him it's a good habit to do backups.
So I need to detect if either:

user never activated Time Machine
last backup is very old so it's like they are not a regular Time Machine user

I've looked into tmutil but I'm not sure which command
would be the most reliable for me to use.

tmutil latestbackup doesnt seems to be a good source of truth for that
tmutil listbackups doesnt seems to be a good source of truth for that
tmutil destinationinfo maybe? I can't test on a Mac that never used Time Machine to see the output


texts: 2017 MacBook Pro starts with a question mark folder when there is less charge and when it wakes up from sleep

texts: My 2017 MacBook Pro reboots with a question mark folder when the charge is below 50%. When I connect my charger, it starts normally. I also noticed when the Macbook goes to sleep and wakes up, it shows the same problem. Also, it becomes really hot when i use heavy software like FCP and starts hanging. I went to the Apple Store and they asked me to reinstall macOS, which didn't work. The common issue with the question mark problem is the SSD, but in my case its not the SSD. I ran a speed test and the SSD is working properly. Do any of you guys have a solution?


texts: Maos 10.13.1 High Sierra: unable to start proftpd

texts:
I just upgrades to 10.13 and I need a ftp server.

I installed proftpd with homebrew.

brew services start proftpd (or sudo brew services start proftpd)
says:

==> Successfully started proftpd (label: homebrew.mxcl.proftpd)

But I am not able to FTP-in from another machine.

I also tried svftp with the same result, so it is probably not a proftpd issue but the way the service is started.

What did I miss in enabling ftp to work?


texts: How to prevent from changing volume when using 2 to 1 RCA connector

texts:
I prepared scheme:

(Amplifier I use is Pioneer A-307R  http://www.pioneer.eu/eur/products/archive/A-307R/page.html

TV Samsung UE40D6750 http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/led-tv/UE40D6750WKXXU)

I connected to Apple TV both HDMI and TOSLINK to be able stream only Music (without need to have TV turn on).

The key point here is the "2RCA to 1RCA" connector, which makes the volume up when one of the device (TV or AppleTV) is turn off. (Or makes the volume down when one of the device turn on alongside other).

For Example:

While you watching TV on TV alone, when you turn on the Apple TV the volume goes down, when you turn off the Apple TV it again goes up to the original level.

Could you explain me why it happens ? And how can I make it work without the volume going up and down?

I thought of ARC system where I will get rid of the TOSLINK cable, and plug the the HDMI directly to the Amplifier, although my Amplifier doesn't support ARC , and I doubt that there are connectors that make it possible to be compatible with ARC and have RCA output.

Thank you very much for your time and help.


texts: Microphone only works with dictation and Siri

texts: When I'm using the internal microphone it barely reproduces what I'm saying, there are no issues using dictation nor Siri. When I open this in settings the microphone works normally, but it reproduces what I'm listening to. Any ideas?


texts:
I'm 16 and I've learned to develop iOS apps recently.

I've finished my first app yesterday and I want to upload it to the App Store.

I've tried to register with my name and my father's credit card and I got the verification code from Apple. But when I'm trying to sign in to my account I get this error message:

  We are unable to activate your Apple Developer Program membership.
  We have received your purchase information and will email you shortly to verify additional details.

Additionally, I'm trying to reach Apple Developer Support for over an hour but they don't answer the phone.

Any idea what can I do with that?


texts: Copy SSH Public Key to clipboard WITHOUT newline appended

texts:
Every Google search for copying a Mac's SSH Public Key to clipboard yields the following command, which results in a newline appended:

pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

This is undesirable as I need to paste a Public Key into a variable in an application I'm developing.  In the hopes of saving folks the trouble of solving the same problem, I'll post my solution to this question in the answers section-


texts: How do I find out which file(s) an app is trying to read at launch?

texts:
The other day MultiMarkdown Composer started crashing on launch, and I can’t get it to stop. (The app appears in the dock and then immediately crashes again.)

I have tried:

Deleting the app and reinstalling it
Deleted files and folders:

~/Library/Preferences/com.multimarkdown.composer.mac.*
~/Library/Application Support/MultiMarkdown Composer/
~/Library/Caches/com.multimarkdown.composer.mac/

open -F -a 'MultiMarkdown Composer'

-F  Opens the application "fresh," that is, without restoring windows. Saved persistent state is lost, except for Untitled documents.

Trying to app in a separate user account works, so it has to be something related to my user account, but I can’t figure out what.

The developer looked at the crash logs and they indicate that it’s trying to read a file when it starts up, but the logs don’t show which file.

So I am trying to find out what files/folders are being accessed when the app is being launched, thinking that might lead to a solution.

What tools are available to do that, and how should I use them?

I tried sudo fs_usage -w -f pathname -f filesys but that didn’t appear to show anything useful.

Any other ideas?

(This is on Mac OS X 10.8.5)


texts: how to quickly reboot from OSX to Windows and back

texts:
From Windows back to OSX is fairly easy.  What I would like is a few less steps to get from OSX to Windows.  Currently I launch system preferences -> startup disk - then select the bootcamp partition and press restart.

Being completely new to OSX it seems to me that a one-click action on the dock should be possible with some sort of automation scripting.  Howerver I know nothing about OSX (yet) and how that works. First, is such a thing possible, and second please provide some tutoral links for such automation system.


texts: Partition type FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF, drive unmountable

texts:
Yes, I already tried this one: Partition type suddenly FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF, drive unmountable

My main partition is in this ffffffff-ffff-ffff-ffff-ffffffffffff format or whatever it is. And I need all the Data on this disk3s2.

Here is a picture of my Disk, a couple of hours ago:

disk3s1: EFI
disk3s2: Macintosh (ffffffff-ffff-ffff-ffff-ffffffffffff partition with all of my Data on, I want this Data!)
disk3s3: Apple_HFS Recovery HD
disk3s4: New (Another useless Partition, its empty.)
disk3s5: Apple_Boot Recovery HD

What I did to try to repair my disk:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk3
sudo gpt destroy /dev/disk3
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk3
sudo gpt create -f /dev/disk3

sudo gpt add -i 1 -b 40 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B /dev/disk3

So whenever I try to add another partition, I get this Error:

gpt add: /dev/disk3: error: no space available on device

Please help if you have any suggestions, I lost a lot of important Data!!!

Update:

diskutil list

leads to this:

 /dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage SSD                     119.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            SSD                    +118.8 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 ...deleted it...
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *320.1 GB   disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1

and

sudo gpt -r show disk3

leads to this:

    start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  624732774
  625142414         32         Sec GPT table
  625142446          1         Sec GPT header


texts: How to automatically back up and archive my photo library?

texts:
I have a Macbook Air. I love it, but the hard drive is too small to fit my entire photo library. At this point the hard-drive is full and I need to find a way to move the files to a back-up location. I know I could just buy an external hard drive and move the files manually, but I would rather find a way where I could automate the process of backing up and moving older photos (or better yet, photos not recently viewed) to an external hard-drive and a remote backup location. I know of a few services that will automatically back up the photos (if I remember to leave the app running) but they don't remove the files, and I have no way of knowing which files have successfully been backed up and/or could be restored if I wanted to. So I don't feel like I have enough confidence in my backups to feel like I can delete the files to clear up space.

So I'm wondering if you know of a way to automate this process.


texts: After factory reset, my iPad asked for a 4 digit password, when I used the old password it doesn't recognise it anymore. Now the devise is locked, how do I find out the new password?


texts: Is there a way to provide a sort order to an mdfind query?

texts:
In trying to get a list of all music files from a particular album using mdfind I see that the files aren't necessarily returned in any order.  I'd prefer album/track order if possible, but can't find a way to provide the sort order on the command line.  The current invocation is something like:

mdfind -onlyin "$MUSICROOT" -literal "$MDQUERY"

where:

$MUSICROOT is ~/Music/iTunes
$MDQUERY is "kMDItemContentTypeTree == 'public.audio' && kMDItemAlbum == '*$1*'c"

Ideally I'd want to add something like the following to the query:

ORDER BY kMDItemAlbum, kMDItemAudioTrackNumber


texts: How to disable HyperThreading on Mac OS X Yosemite?

texts:
I read that on previous versions of OS X it was possible via hwprefs but I didn't figure out how to use it on 10.10.* (looks like it was removed).
I need to disable HyperThreading for Wineskin.


texts: Not getting all iOS Gmail notifications when "Important only" is selected

texts:
In the latest version of the iOS Gmail app released on June 4, they added a feature that allows users to choose to only receive notifications for "Important"/"Priority" emails. This option is only available to users that are using the "Important first" inbox or "Priority Inbox" in the web version of Gmail.

I'm using the "Important first" inbox. I chose to only send me iOS notifications for "Important only". However, I'm not getting notifications for all important emails. I know this because the badge for the Gmail app is updated correctly, but I don't get any lock screen notifications for all these emails. I get notifications for about 25% of all Important emails, and the rest I don't get notified.

I already tried deleting the app and reinstalling it, but that didn't work. Anyone know if this is a known bug of the app? I recall another bug where the app would continuously notify the user by sending notifications for the same email over and over again, until they deleted and reinstalled the app.


texts: Does the iPhone's passcode protect the SIM?

texts:
So my iPhone was just stolen. I have a long - 8 digit - pin. I'm also on the beta version of iOS 7. I think I have Find my iPhone installed and enabled.

It's apparently "offline" - it's standard practice to turn a phone off straight after stealing it, according to the police. I gave the police my Apple logon details, and I'm hoping the crims are dumb enough to turn it back on at some point.

I don't know whether I need to or should cancel my SIM. I'm sure they won't be able to get in to the phone for a while, at least until iOS 7 is publicly cracked. My concern is them taking out the SIM and racking up a phone bill. I'm on Tesco Mobile so the contract is cheap, but overages and non-UK-geographic calls are a bitch.

Is my SIM in any way protected?


texts: How do I change iTunes Wi-Fi Synch Settings

texts: I need to change the Wi-Fi Synch settings to synch with my new laptop.  My iPhone was originally set up to synch with a different laptop.   How do I change the settings on the phone to synch with my laptop at home.    The last time it was synched was Feb 2013


texts: rsync on macOS Catalina : filename overflows max-path len by 2

texts:
I am trying to use rsync to transfer files to a Macbook Pro, like this :
rsync -avn --delete /Users/name/ fab@remote.local:/Users/home_name_from_old/

Unfortunately, I get the following errors on some files/directories :
filename overflows max-path len by 2

Here an example of what I get when I perform this operation of rsync above :
filename overflows max-path len by 2: Phd_2019_2020/Travail_2_Etude_de_la_stabilite_des_C_l_Probleme_avec_TAKAHASHI_ie_2_plateaux_dans_la_derivee_des_Cl_et_aussi_faire_varier_Omega_DE_sur_CAMB_et_regarder_si_les_P_k_changent_21_OCTOBRE_2019/Main_Directory_Work/TSAF_Main_Directory_STARTED_from_13_NOVEMBRE_2019/Test_Comparaison_SUITE_TAKAHASHI_STARTING_BY_USING_CAMB_PYTHON_CAR_PROBLEME_CUTOFF_SITUE_SOIT_A_2e-5_ET_LAUTRE_A_2e-4_ESSAYER_LA_METHODE_DINTERPOLATION_IMPLEMENTE_DANS_CAMB_avec_boost_accuracy_2_ET_k_per_login_75_29_DECEMBRE_2019/STUDY_of_PIC_SUITE_JE_PLOT_2_Pk_FOR_2_VALUES_DE_Omega_m_DIFF_IE_2_STEPS_DIFF_DONC_2_MEME_Z_FAUT_ETRE_DANS_ZONE_PATHO_cad_2e-4_CAD_LA_1st_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DU_PIC_AVEC_600_photoZ_ET_600_Pk_FILES_ET_JE_PLOT_AVANT_ET_APRES_CA_SUGGESTION_DE_LEWIS_05_01_2020/CAMB-1.0.12/fortran_original/SAVE_IMPORTANT_SCRIPTS_ET_Archive_current_Cl_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DES_2_PLATEAUX_DE_TAKAHASHI_AVEC_DER_15_PTS/Analysis_Pk_vs_Step_der_15_pts/Archive_WP_Pk_der_15_pts_step_8.283979084506619e-06/wm_dw2/Pks8sqRatio_ist_LogSplineInterpPk_iz_316.dat

Or yet, now with filename overflows max-path len by 1: error :
filename overflows max-path len by 1: Phd_2019_2020/Travail_2_Etude_de_la_stabilite_des_C_l_Probleme_avec_TAKAHASHI_ie_2_plateaux_dans_la_derivee_des_Cl_et_aussi_faire_varier_Omega_DE_sur_CAMB_et_regarder_si_les_P_k_changent_21_OCTOBRE_2019/Main_Directory_Work/TSAF_Main_Directory_STARTED_from_13_NOVEMBRE_2019/Test_Comparaison_SUITE_TAKAHASHI_STARTING_BY_USING_CAMB_PYTHON_CAR_PROBLEME_CUTOFF_SITUE_SOIT_A_2e-5_ET_LAUTRE_A_2e-4_ESSAYER_LA_METHODE_DINTERPOLATION_IMPLEMENTE_DANS_CAMB_avec_boost_accuracy_2_ET_k_per_login_75_29_DECEMBRE_2019/STUDY_of_PIC_SUITE_JE_PLOT_2_Pk_FOR_2_VALUES_DE_Omega_m_DIFF_IE_2_STEPS_DIFF_DONC_2_MEME_Z_FAUT_ETRE_DANS_ZONE_PATHO_cad_2e-4_CAD_LA_1st_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DU_PIC_AVEC_600_photoZ_ET_600_Pk_FILES_ET_JE_PLOT_AVANT_ET_APRES_CA_SUGGESTION_DE_LEWIS_05_01_2020/CAMB-1.0.12/fortran_original/SAVE_IMPORTANT_SCRIPTS_ET_Archive_current_Cl_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DES_2_PLATEAUX_DE_TAKAHASHI_AVEC_DER_15_PTS/Analysis_Pk_vs_Step_der_15_pts/Archive_WP_Pk_der_15_pts_step_8.283979084506619e-06/wm_dw2/Pks8sqRatio_ist_LogSplineInterpPk_iz_67.dat

and the output of rsync --version :
$ rsync --version
rsync  version 3.1.3  protocol version 31
Copyright (C) 1996-2018 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.
Web site: http://rsync.samba.org/
Capabilities:
    64-bit files, 64-bit inums, 64-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
    socketpairs, hardlinks, symlinks, IPv6, batchfiles, inplace,
    append, ACLs, xattrs, iconv, symtimes, no prealloc, file-flags

rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you
are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  See the GNU
General Public Licence for details.

I guess the path is too long. How do I circumvent this problem?


texts: Which macOS Git GUI app offers a "Split View Staging" view?

texts:
I use SourceTree as a Git GUI tool. I'm very productive with the app and find it far preferable to the command line Git interface for common tasks.

Unfortunately, SourceTree is incredibly slow, buggy, lacking features, and rarely updated. I would very much like to reduce my dependency on Atlassian's product.

The problem is that I'm heavily dependent on SourceTree's Split View Staging view of the staging area. This view perfectly fits my mental model of how a staging view should work.

This view allows individual lines, hunks, or single-character changes to be staged independently. Then, all of the currently staged changes are shown in a single pane of the split view. All of the unstaged changes are shown in the other pane.

This allows you to easily see exactly which changes are staged at any given time, and commit only those specific changes. A file can exist in both the staged and unstaged panes.

What other macOS Git GUI app or tool offers a commit/staging view similar to Split View Staging offered by SourceTree?

One popular Git GUI app, GitHub Desktop, apparently has no plans to support Split View Staging:

Make staging line hunks more obvious #1688


texts: iPhone 6 Initial Power Up SIM Card Locking?

texts:
First, my question: Does swapping out a foreign SIM for the Sprint SIM that comes in new Sprint iPhone 6's prior to the first power up in any way prevent the iPhone from being locked by Sprint for international use. (I understand that unlocking Sprint iPhones for domestic use is impossible; I'm only asking about international use)

Now, a little background: I recently purchased an on-contract Sprint iPhone 6, and have not yet powered it on - though it was added to my account at the store already. I will be taking a trip overseas in about 3 weeks and would like to use the phone with local carriers while I'm there. Unfortunately, according to Sprint's international unlock policy, I won't be able to get them to unlock the phone before then since it won't have been active for 90 days. I've read hints online about being able to prevent a Sprint iPhone from getting locked internationally by swapping in a foreign SIM for the standard Sprint SIM when first powering it on. Is there any truth to that? Would Sprint have any way of noticing that I've powered it up this way? Would it cause any problems with my account with them?


texts: Trying to remove files listed in file with AppleScript with do shell script call

texts:
The following code is an example of what I'm using at the moment, but it keeps erroring out on me:

do shell script "find /Applications -name 'Bingo.app' > /tmp/remove_files" with administrator privileges
if exists "/tmp_malware_alternate" then
    do shell script ("for i in `cat /tmp/remove_files`; do rm -rf $i") with administrator privileges
    do shell script "rm -rf /tmp/remove_files" with administrator privileges
end if

It's supposed to find the existence of a file (in this case, Bingo.app) and write it to a temporary file (/tmp/remove_files), which it does, and then check to see if the temporary file was written. If it was, it will look into that temporary file, and delete each file (specified by i) in the temporary file listing, then remove the temporary file itself.

Instead, all it ever does is return an error:

/bin/sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file

or

error "/bin/sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file" number 2

What am I missing in this?


texts: Remote login option not saving after reboot

texts:
I have two Mac minis which both lose the remote login option after a reboot, and I don't know why. After I check that box, it saves, at least during that session. But after a reboot, I always find the box unchecked:

macOS versions:

macOS 10.12.3
OS X 10.10.5


texts: Recommendations for headset (+ mic ) for macbook in 2012

texts:
I'm looking for a stereo headset and not simply in-ear headphones for Skype at affordable prices.

From past experience, I own a dual-jack headset Logitech from my PC. Sound came out but the mic never worked on my Mac mini. A HP XA490AA headphone worked great on PC but was never recognized on OS X.

I'm thinking about a headset directly compatible with Mac OS X. I prefer a single-jack input over USB since it doesn't use a USB port, but USB is fine. What options exist and what standards will allow me to know a single-jack mic/headphone combination that will work with a Mac?

EDIT: I know iPhone/iPod/iPad headphones are compatible with MacBooks. But these are headphones.

What I read today and for sharing

  The difference between USB and jack: USB uses the motherboard card. Jack uses the sound card. Usually laptops have crap sound cards. So go for USB.

EDIT May 31 2012: I finally bought a Logitech USB Headset H530 . Satisfied with skype clear voice. For most USB headphone, do not forget to turn on System Preferences > Sound > select the device in input and ouput tabs.


texts: Any downside to using multiple mail and calendar apps on iOS?

texts: I am wondering if there is a downside to using multiple mail and calendar apps on my iOS device?  Specifically the iOS devices come with apple provide apps for both, but I have found 3rd party apps that work better for me.  If I have both (Apple's app as well as the 3rd party app) configured, am I doubling the amount of data & memory I am using on the iOS device?


texts: Why don't deleted events disappear from my shared calendar?

texts: My wife has an iCloud calendar that she has shared with me. When she deletes an event from the calendar, it still shows up on my devices, but not on any of hers. When I delete an event, it's only removed from that one device; for example, if I delete it from my iPhone, it will still show up on my iPad. Is there a way to automatically remove events deleted from my wife's shared calendar on all of my devices?


texts: Completely disable a keyboard shortcut for one application

texts:
When using Microsoft Remote Desktop, I frequently find myself accidentally trying to close browser tabs with ⌘W (which is mapped to "Close Connection" by default).  I was at least able to stop it from closing the connection every time by mapping it to one of the help menu options, but it's still annoying to have a window pop up every time I do it.

What I really want is for it to do nothing, but all I can find is how to assign a different key combination to the command (which doesn't work in this case for some reason, it just adds it as a second shortcut in addition to ⌘W) or how to assign the key combination to a different command. Is there any way to disable the shortcut entirely instead?

Update: this seems to specifically be a problem with Microsoft Remote Desktop version 8.


texts: How do I disable WebEx Assistant on startup for Mac?   I dont want to remove the application completely, but I dont want it to launch automatically at startup.


texts: Youtube-dl and ffmpeg - error (Javascript / shell script)

texts:
I'm using an automation platform called Soundflow, which uses custom javascript code to control various things with shortcut triggers - it's highly recommended!
I have one script that makes use of youtube-dl as well as ffmpeg. (it downloads a youtube video, and then extracts the audio and converts it to wav).
When I run youtube-dl in Terminal, it runs fine, no problems.
Same with ffmpeg, I have installed it correctly and I'm able to use it in terminal.
However when I try to run a shell script from Soundflow, it is running the youtube-dl section initially, but then it gets stuck on the bit where it uses ffmpeg to do the video conversion (in this case it's extracting the audio from a youtube video). I doubt it's a Soundflow issue as I run other similar shell scripts fine (for example ffmpeg conversions).
I have installed both ffmpeg and youtube-dl via homebrew.
I'm wondering if the problem has something to do with my install location for either ffmpeg or youtube-dl; I don't know how to edit this or change it, but I think the script may be missing where it expects ffmpeg to be.
Do you have any tips where it's getting stuck?
This is the error I get in the log: ffprobe/avprobe and ffmpeg/avconv not found

const youtubeDL = '/opt/homebrew/bin/youtube-dl';
var url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ';

log(`Download started`);

var execResult = sf.system.exec({
        commandLine: `"${youtubeDL}" "${url}" --extract-audio --audio-format wav`
    });

log (execResult)

if (execResult.exitCode !== 0) {
    throw `MP4 download failed with exit code: ${execResult.exitCode}`;
}


texts: Corrupted USB Drive - Unable to Partition or Erase Disk

texts:
I am heavily struggling with a corrupted USB. The problem I am facing is that I can neither partition nor erase the Disk. The disk is empty and there is not partition created. I can also not find a volume. It is also impossible to initialised the disk or perform any action on disk utility.

Any help is highly appreciated.

$ diskutil list
...
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
  #:          TYPE NAME             SIZE       IDENTIFIER
  0:                               *16.0 GB    disk2


texts: Sierra showing incorrect monitor in Display Preferences

texts:
I just bought a monitor, a 24-inches AOC U2477PWQ, 4K resolution. I attached it to my 2012 MacBook Air running the latest version of Sierra, and macOS thinks it's a 30-inches AOC U2477WM, 1080p.

How come macOS thinks it's a different monitor? Is it just because they share the same driver (weird)?

I'm using HDMI with a MiniDisplay to HDMI adapter.

EDIT: I'd like to run at the native resolution, possibly enabling retina, or at least the biggest resolution that the MBA mid-2012 can handle, which should be around 2,500something.


texts: Export from Notes.app to Markdown format?

texts:
Using notes is handy as you can have it in multiple devices and makes transition almost effortless. I'm willing to move some of these to Markdown so I can share the content and add formatting to it.

Is it possible to be done by default? The only export option is to PDF. If there is some hack that I can apply I'm happy to spend some cycles on that but maybe there is already an option I'm missing.

I've find a few questions pointing to apps to directly do this (Editor or notes application with Markdown support?), but I'm trying to find an alternative with the native app.


texts: Messages and soagent making CPU spike - any solutions?

texts:
I've had my MacBook for 3 years and have never had this issue... Recently (maybe a month ago?) Messages and soagent are making my CPU spike. It sounds like my MacBook is about to take off into outer space so I have to kill both processes in my Activity Monitor. That fixes my issue, temporarily, until I open Messages again and it starts all over. I've tried researching this but don't really seem to find a fix.

I'm running Mac OS Sierra, v 10.12.6

This is driving me insane... any suggestions?


texts: How can I disassociate a single app (e.g., Xcode) from all file types it's mapped to?

texts:
Every time I get a machine that I install Xcode on, it associates itself with all kinds of filetypes.  E.g., .xml, .rb, even .java!  It's such a nuisance to have to re-associate those file extensions individually.  If I want to open Xcode, I'll open Xcode, but I never want to open Xcode by double-clicking on a script or using open.

Is there any way to globally disassociate Xcode from all file types?  More generally, is there any way to do this for any app (e.g., QuickTime)?

PS: I know about How to Change File Type Associations? but this aims at changing one specific association, not disabling them all at once.


texts: Why is it not possible to change username on an Exchange account of Mail.app?

texts:
I'm trying to set up an Exchange server in Mail.app. The username in the preferences is incorrect, and I can't connect to the server because of that.

There's no explanation in the UI, or any help section to explain.

When I select the "User Name:" field nothing happens. The text is gray, and not editable. The same is true for "external server".

How can you edit this information?


texts: How can I keep my MacBook Air's battery cool?

texts:
It seems that the best advice for battery longevity on my MacBook Air is to keep the battery cool. It doesn't have powerful fans like the MacBook Pro, so I would think that overheating is even more of a problem on an Air than a Pro. What are the best ways to keep the MacBook Air cool?

Note: this isn't a duplicate of this question since that question (and the answers) deals with how to prevent the fan noise.


texts:
I received a PDF file in an email. I successfully opened it. Later, I went back to the email, but could not access the PDF again. The first time the PDF appeared as box. The second time I opened the email the PDF appears as follows: <2016 TIAHA Charity Golf Tournament, Participants 9-18-2016.xls>

How can I access the PDF a second time?


texts: I have lost all my stored messages on my Hotmail account having been advised to delete the app icon which was being problematical. I was then advised to go to the App Store and upload the Outlook icon, which I did. I was also told that all my messages would have been stored in ICloud. Having uploaded the hotmail app there appears to be zero messages saved. Going to ICloud I find that there are very old messages saved, ie 2018, but nothing beyond. Can anyone help please.


texts: Boot windows bios from second internal drive MBP Mid 2012

texts:
I'm facing a little big problem concerning my windows partition:
State of the art is, that I removed my CD-Drive and replaced it with a second SSD. Therefore I thought of moving windows 10 to one disk and leave os x on the "main drive" might be a good idea (just in case of possible future drive problems to fix them more easily). Although, Mac lists them both as internal drives, I firstly wasn't able to install it via Bootcamp on the second drive, so I installed windwos without Bootcamp directly on the drive using efi boot. Unfortunately efi boot isn't completely supported on this MBP model, (soundcard and TB2 for external displays don't work) but at least everything else worked that way!
This is why I turned the efi boot into a bios boot.
It worked perfectly, when only the drive with windows was inserted but when I added the second drive with os x, suddenly booting into Windows wasn't possible anymore! I did a little research and found out, that windows obviously needs to be on the "first" drive (disk0) to start. So, I shuffled the SSDs and was immediately able to boot windows again. Happy that I finally reached my goal I switched to os x.
But when I tried to boot back into windows it didn't work again.
I tried to recreate the boot files for windows with "bcdboot" and also created a startup partition on the os x drive of 200MB with the windows boot files but it's still not working.
So now I don't know what to do anymore! I don't want to shuffle (or unmount) the disks every time I want to use windows!
Is there a possibility to do a work around for that problem? (A virtual machine is no possible solution as I'm in need of full RAM capacity).
Thanks in advance!


texts: How to force "default" audio devices (maybe programmatically)?

texts:
Basically my question is similar to this one: depending on my location, my Mac is connected to different audio devices.

Often, the Mac remembers that when I connect it to my dock in the office, that it should pick my USB headset for input/output. But not always.

I think there aren't any existing apps to help with this, but I am wondering: are there any "easy to use, say scripting", interfaces that one can use to write a bit of code that reacts to "events" and that could update sound settings programmatically?


texts: Permanently allow apps downloaded from "anywhere"

texts: I want to trust unidentified developers' applications. I've gone to System Preferences > Security & Privacy and tried to enable "Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere", but OS X claims it will reset my "Anywhere" selection after 30 days of inactivity. Actually, I don't want OS X to make it unusually difficult for me to use my software, ever. Is it possible to make this selection permanent?


texts: How to track down why Wi-Fi random disconnects on one particular network?

texts:
See comment in accepted answer for the likely problem source.

I'm using my laptop (an early 2013 Retina MacBook Pro running OS 10.9.1) on a campus network. I have had random disconnection issues on this (and only this) network. The problem occurs as follows. After some time of working fine (usually an hour or two), I begin being disconnected from the network consistently. I can stay connected for maybe 10 or 20 seconds before being disconnected again. When I am disconnected, the computer gives itself a self-assigned IP address, and maybe a minute later is (sometimes) able to get a new address from the DHCP server. If I manually renew the DHCP lease (sometimes) or if I turn Wi-Fi off and on (almost all the time), it connects again, but only for another 20 seconds. A reboot does not help; it begins the disconnect cycles immediately on boot.

I've contacted the network support team several times and talked to them in person several more times, but they've been unable (or maybe unwilling) to track down the problem. I want to make sure that there's no problem with my system. I'm suspicious since my iPhone and iPad both have no problems. The laptop, however, has no problems on other networks (ever) so I'm just not sure. The fact that only the laptop is doing it suggests it may be having trouble, but all other networks are fine, which suggests the network is at fault.

I'm mainly looking for suggestions of what problems could cause this behavior, and where appropriate, solutions (either complete or partial) that might fix them. What techniques can I use to track down the real source of this problem?


texts: Login user when connecting via ssh on MacOS

texts:
I've added MacOS Sierra machine to a corporate Active Directory domain and have enabled the remote login for several users in an AD group.

Those users can log in locally via UI and even can log in via opened SSH to mac.

The business requirement that this was done for is to allow users to connect to a Xamarin Build host from Visual Studio to develop for iOS, but this is outside of the scope of this question. So ultimately the connection from Visual Studio is done via pure SSH. Once the remote MacOS machine accepts the ssh credentials that are entered in VS UI, it tries to deploy a program part required by VS to perform needed tasks, a Broker application. The log of the attempt is the following:

Starting connection to Mac mac.mydomain.net... Starting Broker
4.3.0.795 in port 58116...
The user must be logged in on the Mac in order to execute an SSH command.
Disconnected from the Mac mac.mydomain.net (IP of mac.mydomain.net)

The problem is this entry:

The user must be logged in on the Mac in order to execute an SSH command.

Basically, if I go onto the MacOS via UI and login that user, then using Fast User Switching I will just move the screen back to login window, while maintaining the user's UI session on, I would be able to connect via Visual Studio just fine.

So ssh login is not the same as UI login. How can I set up the events or something, so that upon SSH login, a user would be "as in in UI" logged in as well?

Update: Probably duplicate of https://superuser.com/questions/39322/induce-mac-graphical-login-from-ssh


texts: applications sometimes keeps bouncing, won't open and won't respond to force quit

texts: Most of the time my macbook air works fine. Only problem is that when I just turned on my pc and want to open some applications , often these applications won't open and force quit does not work. Currently, I just wait a couple of minutes and then everything works just fine, but actually I don't want to wait, so I was wondering how to solve this problem. Any suggestions?


texts: How can I keep my system clock in sync under Mavericks?

texts:
I have a mid 2011 27" iMac running Mavericks (10.9.1). I updated from Mountain Lion this Fall when Mavericks was released. I never had any problem before with my system clock.

Since installing Mavericks my clock consistently gains about 20 seconds per day. I have my Time Zone correctly set and "Set Date and Time Automatically" is checked in my Date & Time system preferences. It is set to use "Apple/Americas/U.S. (time.apple.com)"

When I open the Date & Time System Preferences pane my clock gets adjusted immediately to the correct time, but without opening the pane, it gets off track pretty quickly.

I have rebooted, checked and unchecked the box to set the date and time automatically and neither seems to have helped.

Any solutions or ideas?

UPDATE:

I have made what feels like progress. Question: How can I tell if my mac is keeping the clock updated properly? and its accepted answer by grgarside provided a lot of helpful troubleshooting help. My drift is a whopping 499.988 (gains 43.19 seconds per day)!

Most importantly, pacemaker is running every 5 - 15 seconds, as evidenced by my stem log, however, every time it runs it gets an error:

Feb  1 11:53:29 jsw.local pacemaker[19928]: adjtime: Operation not permitted
Feb  1 11:53:39 jsw.local pacemaker[19928]: adjtime: Operation not permitted
Feb  1 11:53:51 jsw.local pacemaker[19928]: adjtime: Operation not permitted
Feb  1 11:53:59 jsw.local pacemaker[19928]: adjtime: Operation not permitted
Feb  1 11:54:09 jsw.local pacemaker[19928]: adjtime: Operation not permitted
Feb  1 11:54:19 jsw.local pacemaker[19928]: adjtime: Operation not permitted

It seems I have a permission problem, but I cannot figure it out. I have unloaded and reloaded the pacemaker plsit via launchctl

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.pacemaker.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.pacemaker.plist

here is a text export of my com.apple.pacemaker.plist

{
    Label = "com.apple.pacemaker";
    ProgramArguments = (
        "/usr/libexec/pacemaker",
        "-b",
        "-e",
        "0.0001",
        "-a",
        10,
    );
    KeepAlive = {
        PathState = {
            "/private/var/db/ntp.drift" = YES;
        };
    };
}

my /private/var/db/ntp.drift file is owned by root:wheel and its permissions are 644, /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.pacemaker.plist has exactly the same ownership and permissions.

I hope this update provides enough additional information so that someone can get me past this issue.


texts: Mac Pro 2009 very hard to boot; shuts down randomly; fan spinning high

texts:
My Mac Pro from 2009 has been very hard to boot recently.

The procession is usually as follows:

Will start to boot, shuts down, fans start spinning at maximum speed, for multiple times
Will get to login screen, instant shut down, fan starts spinning at maximum speed
Will be able to log in, instant shut down, fan starts spinning at maximum speed

It always goes through this progression. At times, the Mac will still shut down randomly after that, but will boot up in one go after that shutdown.

It has been getting worse and worse. Initially, it wouldn't crash. Then it would start crashing randomly. Then it would be harder to boot.

Diagnostic reports show nothing, temperature sensors all seem normal when the computer is running. The fan also doesn't spin fast before these shutdowns. SMC reset doesn't help.

EDIT: after a while, I found what is likely to be the cause of the issue.

2019-10-22 21:29:49 Kernel Panic (18 times)
    Details:
        panic(cpu 1 caller 0xffffff800038776f): Kernel trap at 0xffffff7f80c62
        6de, type 14=page fault, registers:
    3rd party kernel extensions:
        com.nvidia.NVDAStartupWeb
        com.nvidia.web.GeForceWeb
        com.nvidia.web.NVDAGM100HalWeb
        com.nvidia.web.NVDAResmanWeb
        com.parrotgeek.SIPManager
        org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv
        org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp
        org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt
        org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB

2019-10-22 16:40:53 mdworker - Memory (3 times)
    Executable: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdworker

2019-10-21 07:19:09 com.apple.WebKit.WebContent - Memory (3 times)
    Executable: /System/Library/StagedFrameworks/Safari/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com.apple.WebKit.WebContent.xpc/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

2019-10-21 00:33:39 helpd - Memory (4 times)
    Executable: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/HelpData.framework/Versions/A/Resources/helpd

2019-10-20 18:57:24 WindowServer - High CPU Use (2 times)
    Executable: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SkyLight.framework/Versions/A/Resources/WindowServer

2019-10-20 03:11:48 spindump - Crash
    Executable: /usr/sbin/spindump
    Details:
        Assertion Failed -[SPSampledProcess requireHIDEvent:]_block_invoke_2 S
        PProcessEvent.m:839 _hidEventSem == NULL
        abort() called

2019-10-19 04:02:37 Runner.app - Crash (3 times)
    Executable: /Users/***/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/B678EE85-7528-4857-9AC2-FD2268C856E9/data/Containers/Bundle/Application/499D7ED6-B35E-40C0-A9C5-20A24408F686/Runner.app
    Details:
        abort() called
        CoreSimulator 581.2 - Device: iPhone XR - Runtime: iOS 12.1 (16B91) -
        DeviceType: iPhone Xʀ


texts: Boot camp install of Windows 7 issue, no bootable devices

texts:
So I have a 2010 15" macbook pro (MBP6,1) and I replaced the optical drive with a hard disk. I wanted to install windows 7 on the hard disk with boot camp with a USB and ISO image.

After searching I found that I need to modify my plist.info to allow my boot camp to create a bootable USB (since normally it doesn't have the option to create the USB for my model since it came with a disk drive).

After doing so and seemingly having a fine (but long) install process onto the USB. I told boot camp how much space to partition windows on and hit install.

Then the computer restarted. When it came back up it was stuck on a grey apple logo screen forever (I waited 15 minutes to ensure it wasn't just "thinking"). I force restarted and the next time it turned on it got stuck on the grey logo for a bit but then proceeded to go to a black screen that said " No bootable device - please insert a bootable device and hit any key". I tried hitting keys with he USB in but nothing happened.

I had to eventually remove the USB and reset PRAM to get it to boot into osx again

Is there any way to install windows 7 from a usb on my macbook pro using boot camp?


texts:
When I try to ssh (using ssh user@server.com) into my server at home from either the local network or from outside, I get the following error:

But if I use sudo ssh user@server.com, it works with no problems:

I'm sure I just need to place some kind of key in that /Users/mattlove/.ssh/known_hosts directory, but I'm not sure how or why.

Any of you UNIX buffs out there have an answer?

E D I T :

Here are the results of running ls -l ~/.ssh/known_hosts as requested by @LoïcWolff


texts: New installations of Windows are not supported on iMac13,2 with 3TB hard disk drive?

texts:
I have a 2012 iMac with a 3TB Fusion drive, currently with Catalina 10.15.4, and I understand I can't Boot Camp it, at least not with Boot Camp Assistant. I've assumed that I could do it manually, which stems from having started much earlier today attempting to make this work in High Sierra before updating to Catalina. I've run across issues all day no matter which direction I've turned in. I'd like to understand if there really is no way to install Windows 10, and if there isn't, what I'm doing wrong.

I was using the
extensive guide at https://fgimian.github.io/blog/2016/03/12/installing-windows-10-on-a-mac-without-bootcamp/. My current hurdle: when I go to install Windows, I'm told the it can't locate a drive or make a partition.

Darins-iMac:~ darin$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Internal Drive          121.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Internal Drive          53.2 GB    disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk1s3
   4:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         1.8 TB     disk1s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data WINDOWSINST             1.1 TB     disk1s6

/dev/disk2 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Untitled               +159.7 GB   disk2
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2
                                 0256C1D9-2F56-4C25-8E34-E67E11D5F863
                                 Unencrypted Fusion Drive

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1.8 TB     disk3
                                 Physical Store disk1s4
   1:                APFS Volume Untitled - Data         219.7 GB   disk3s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 25.7 MB    disk3s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                525.2 MB   disk3s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      17.2 GB    disk3s4
   5:                APFS Volume Untitled                12.3 GB    disk3s5

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *15.5 GB    disk4
   1:               Windows_NTFS FAT32                   15.5 GB    disk4s1

Darins-iMac:~ darin$ sudo gdisk /dev/disk0
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.5

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! I'm not really familiar with this process and don't know if I'm barking up the wrong tree.


texts: What causes my Macbook to spontaneously shut down?

texts:
Out of the blue today, my Macbook Pro 2015 15", running macOS Catalina 10.15.2, shut down while I was using it.

Since then, for the past half hour or so, I haven't been able to keep it on for longer than a minute or so. It either spontaneously shuts down, requiring me to manually turn it back on, or it spontaneously restarts. Now (a day later) it only spontaneously shuts down. It doesn't restart itself.

This happens when it is plugged into the charger and when it is simply running on battery. This also happens while only headphones are connected to the MacBook, or while no peripherals are connected.

Apple Diagnostics shows "No issues found."

I have tried resetting SMC and NVRAM.

Additionally, when starting up I notice weird graphical glitches, for example a white bar sometimes appears on the left side of the screen, or the apple logo repeatedly resizes itself, or a regular pattern of white rectangles appears across the whole screen.

I got a picture of that:

This flashes onto the screen after the first apple logo appears.

The Macbook does not spontaneously shut down or restart when I boot it into Recovery Mode or Safe Mode.

However, there are also graphical glitches in both of these modes; look at the terminal tabs in Recovery Mode:

Moving the mouse cursor over the tabs causes them to scintillate randomly, rectangular monochrome patterns. and glitches.

Exactly the same graphical glitch happens to Finder tabs in Safe Mode.

Why does my Macbook restart like that after I've booted it normally? How do I resolve this problem?


texts: Is there a difference between factory unlocked and carrier unlocked?

texts: I just successfully unlocked an old AT&T iPhone 4 and 4S using AT&T's unlock process. They are not jailbroken. As I've gone online to sell the phones, the selling phrase is "Factory Unlocked." Is there any difference between factory unlocked and my successful "carrier unlock"? If so, what are the differences?


texts: How to make Facebook for iPhone open links in Safari?

texts:
Is there a way to make Facebook for iPhone (and other iPhone apps like Google & Yelp) always open links in Safari (or YouTube, etc.) instead of in an internal web view?

The native apps like Safari & Youtube seem to usually work much better than web views. Plus, iOS 9 adds a back button that takes you back to the original app with one tap.


texts: Why does my macbook pro displays random garbled blocks?

texts: Occasionally my macbook pro (15-inch, Early 2011 with mountain lion 10.8.2) displays random garbled blocks. This happens on external Apple displays and the laptop display. See photo.


texts: How to pass variables from bash script to AppleScript

texts:
I have a file with a list of URL's. I need to pass each URL from a bash script to be used in an AppleScript.

while read urls
do
    osascript -e \
    'tell application "Safari"
        tell window 1
            tell current tab to open location "$urls"
        end tell
    end tell'
done <file.txt

This doesn't work. It passes the literal string $urls as the location to be opened in Safari. How can I pass the bash variable $urls to AppleScript?


texts: Issues with SMC after using caffeinate command

texts:
I've been using the caffeinate command regularly over the last few months and my Macbook Pro (mid 2012) has had SMC issues all of the sudden causing it to crash when I unplug the power cable.

I've reset the SMC a couple of times already and then things are fine for a couple of weeks, but then out of the blue I'll unplug my power cable and things crash.

Curious to know if there are any known issues with caffeinate, especially in older mac models. If so, anything I can do to prevent this issue?


texts: Do the two iPhones receive the messages?

texts:
I have set my Apple ID on two iPhones already and I'm wondering if the other iPhone will receive my messages?

The phone I'm using has service but the other one doesn't.

I was thinking only the messages sent from iMessage, but I don't know so. Will they receive my messages?


texts: Is it possible to use an iPad as an additional computer monitor?

texts:
I just ran across this app from Maxivista that allows you to use your iPad as a second monitor. It's just like their other app that lets you use another computer as an additional monitor, such as a laptop. The problem is, however, it's a bit sluggish as it has to use WiFi to send what is basically a video signal.

So, are there any solutions that allow you to use an iPad as an additional screen via USB?


texts: Does MacBook Air laptop is enough for Automation Testing

texts:
I'm wanna use Xcode and Android Studio with Appium to do a Mobile Automation Testing. Then for Websites I'm gonna use selenium stuffs. Additionally pycharm & IntelliJ for some test scripts.
For these above, which Mac (Spec) is good to buy.
I'm actually planning to buy MacBook Air.


texts: Why is iPhoto for iOS is "updating photo library" so slowly every time I open it?

texts:
Every time I open iPhoto on the iPad, I get an "updating photo library" dialog that sometimes takes minutes to process.

I often get it again after editing and sharing a photo within the app.   I do have a large number of photos on the device - probably close to 10k, but other photo apps seem perfectly capable of opening my photos and loading a given album when I select it.  iPhoto seems to need to rebuild the entire database at every open. Most of the time, almost nothing has changed (safe for a handful of new photostream pics.

Is this a direct function of the number of pics on the device?

Is there a setting I can disable? (It's occurred to me that the "find similar photos" feature, which I dont' care about, could be why it's working so hard at every open.

If I wanted something that took a half hour to boot up, I'd buy an adobe product.


texts: Why is iCloud not syncing my calendars on my iOS devices?

texts: When I create or update a calendar event on one device, it is not being propagated to my other devices via iCloud despite having iCloud enabled for calendars on all my devices and the Apple ID being the same everywhere.


texts: Cannot fully use Apple Shake application in macOS 10.13 High Sierra

texts:
On July 2009, Apple discontinued Shake. No direct application's replacement was announced by Apple, but some features (stabilize and optical flow estimation, to name a few) are now available in Final Cut Pro X 10.4 and Motion 5.4 in 2018.

Apple Shake was built on 32-bit Carbon API. I surely understand it's not 64-bit Cocoa API, these APIs are different. But Carbon.framework is still included in /System/Library/Frameworks/ in High Sierra, Sierra or El Capitan, and great old apps (such as Shake, Color, Soundtrack Pro) can use it.

I'm still using Shake in High Sierra launching shake via Terminal app:

But I can't (for obvious reason) launch Shake via clicking its icon in Applications folder:

So I have two questions:

What should I do to bypass this OS limitation and to make Shake run after clicking its icon in Applications folder or on Dock?
If the first is impossible, how to get rid of white crossed-out circle overlay on Shake's icon (regular icon replacement isn't working in this case)?

P.S.

I FOUND POSSIBLE SOLUTION (thanks to Thomas Voßen): Shake on Mac OS X 10.11.6

Make a duplicate of Shake.
Select "Show Package Contents"
Go to the "Contents" folder and open Info.plist. Xcode has a plist editor.
Edit the entry com.apple.shake and change it to something like com.apple.shake4.
Save the plist file.

Now it's possible to start Shake with a double click from the Finder in High Sierra 10.13.5.

But there's no Info.plist file in Contents folder.


texts: Error: An Error occurred while preparing the installation, while re-installing Mac OS Sierra

texts:
I am trying to reset my MacBook Pro, and when I was re-installing the macOS I got this error:

  An Error occurred while preparing the installation.  Try running this application again.

When I searched the internet I found most of people met this issue when they just click the continue on Eligibility Verification window. The reason for this one is because the date is error, but I checked my date in terminal and it is correct.

I met this error on the About x minutes remaining step, and it was wait a few time when this error shown up.

Ps: It said After 5 minutes remaining when the installation started, but I wait a long time (half an hour) until the error popped up.

Anyone met this problem and has solution?

Cheers


texts: How to fix an iPad that froze on home screen?

texts:
I have an iPad Air running iOS 7.1.2 and is not jailbroken, I opened an application yesterday and when I was finished with it I closed it by using the four finger gesture where you place your fingers around the edges of the screen and you then slide them all towards the middle of the screen.

This gesture is supposed to close my current opened application and then display the home screen with all my installed applications on the iPad. But what this gesture did was close the application and display my home screen picture and the iPad froze where I could not see or access any application on my iPad. I only had the display of my home screen with no application visible.

If I lock my iPad and then unlock it, the same home screen display would appear without showing me the lock screen, and I won't be able to access or see any application on my iPad. It's like I had a framed picture in my hand not an iPad. I could've even shutdown my iPad with only pressing the sleep/wake button, my iPad kept displaying the home screen display after pressing and holding the sleep/wake button for a several seconds.

The only way I could get my iPad functioning again is through the hard restart (press and hold the home button and the sleep/wake button for several seconds until the screen goes black and you see the apple logo) which I don't think is the best solution for this problem, becuase the problem could surely happen again. Any suggestions how to fix this?


texts: How can I download book from Kindle app to Kindle Volume?

texts:
How can I pass content I've bought on Amazon to my Amazon Kindle (Paperwhite)? Because it turned out that it is not that easy. Actually, it is really hard.

What I've tried so far:

Shared Wi-Fi from iMac, but Kindle says that "Peer-to-peer networks are not supported by Kindle". Fail.
Installed Kindle for Mac app, tried to find something like download to device. Fail.
Installed "Send to Kindle app" and realised that it solves completely different task.
Found path where Kindle for Mac stores downloaded books, copied files to Kindle's Volume document folder. These books are seen but Kindle refuses to open any of them claiming they are not mine.
Downloading to my good old Kindle DX, trying to copy to Paperwhite. The same shit as in previous attempt.

My MacOS is 10.8.2 if that helps.
I'll appreciate any kind of advice. Whole this situation is making me annoyed. I mean, it is my content, I've bought it.


texts: What is the purpose of (and criteria for inclusion in) the "Downloaded" section of the iTunes Library?

texts:
I've just upgraded to iTunes 12.7, and there is a new item in the Library section of the sidebar: "Downloaded".  When I click on it, I am shown the same set of items that appear in the "Albums" section, but sorted by artist name.

As far as I am aware none of these items were downloaded from the iTunes store: most were ripped from CD with a few downloaded from other online music providers.

What is the purpose of the "Downloaded" section?  Is it an error that it is showing a lot of music that was not downloaded?

How might I see a list of music which was actually downloaded from the iTunes store?


texts: Which short command to only output the IPv4 routing table?

texts:
$ netstat -nr is great for outputting the Mac OS X IP routing tables.

However its output is long as it contains both IPv4 and IP6 routing tables.

Sometimes I wish to output only the IPv4 routing table. I wish to use short terminal command to only see the IPv4 routing table.

My best result is $ netstat -nr | sed -e '1,3d;/Internet6:/,$d;/^$/d'

Can this command be shortened?


texts:
I want to add background to a specific word in Pages. I want to make a distance between this word and the edges of its background. Making distances horizontally on both sides of this word is more important to me. How can I add padding to a word in Pages?
PS: I know how to work the spacing section in Pages to add space before and after each paragraph. So it’s not my problem.


texts: MS Office 2019 crashes on Big Sur on startup

texts:
When I start an app from Microsoft Office 2019 (Word, Excel or Powerpoint) I get the following crash:
Application Specific Information:
*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** -[NSFileManager createDirectoryAtURL:withIntermediateDirectories:attributes:error:]: URL is nil'
abort() called
terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException

Full crash log

I tried re-installing Office, deleting the library folder (e.g. ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word). I also get the same error when installing Office 2016!
Any help is highly appreciated!


texts: How to play .wmv file with a MSS1 stream encoded?

texts: Just wondering if anyone know how to play .wmv file with a MSS1 stream encoded?


texts: Can I replace a MBP 2012 SSD with the Flash storage from a MBP 2013?

texts:
My son's MBP (13-inch, Mid 2012) internal SSD has been acting strangely enough that I'm starting to wonder if it needs to be replaced (do SSDs fail?). I have a MBP (retina 15-inch, Early 2013) with a failing logic/graphics board combo that I'm going to need to replace anyway.

Can I take the 512 GB flash storage from my 2013 MBP and put it into my son's machine? I realize that the process may be arduous, I just wanted to find out if it's even compatible.

Thanks!


texts: Command line reading of screen lock timeout preferences

texts:
I'm writing a script to check for security compliance on a number of computers and wanted to verify that the user has set the computer to require a password immediately after sleep or screensaver. Basically I want to verify the status of this preference pane:

I've found information here:

https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/9982/require-password-after-sleep-or-screen-saver-begins

And elsewhere that suggests the answer is to do this:

defaults -currentHost read com.apple.screensaver askForPassword

or

defaults read com.apple.screensaver askForPassword

but that setting doesn't appear to be set in High Sierra in either place and doesn't change when I change the length of time from Immediately to something else.

Any ideas where I might find this information in a command-line accessible manner? I kind of want the equivalent of FileVault's fdesetup status (or equivalent way to get that data) but for this setting.


texts: How do I add a buddy to more than one group in OS X Messages.app?

texts: When sorting buddies for XMPP services (not iMessage) into different groups in the contacts window in Messages.app for OS X I can click and drag one buddy from one group to another. However this removes the 'buddy' or contact from the previous group. How do I add a buddy to two groups?


texts: multiple terminal launchers on the dock?

texts:
I have a terminal shortcut on my dock which I use every day. Depending on my monitor setup (extra, 2 extra, etc.) to my Macbook Pro, I like to have a different launching scheme (either 4 windows or 5 windows).

Is there a way to have 2 (or more) terminal launchers on the dock, one which launches the "4 windows" setup and one which launches the "5 windows" setup?


texts: How can I change the resolution on my Mac to 720p (1280x720)?

texts:
I'm looking to record some screencasts, and 720p (1280x720) seems to be the best choice for the resolution. It's supported by video sites like YouTube and Vimeo as one of the standard "HD" resolutions, but it's small enough that it can be comfortably viewed on smaller screens without needing to play the video back full screen.

However, there is no option for 1280x720 in my System Preferences. How can I get my Mac to use this resolution? I've seen SwitchResX and I've tried to make it work, but it's very complicated and I haven't had much luck with it. Are there any other utilities that do the same thing? Would buying a Mini DisplayPort -> HDMI adapter and hooking it up to a 720p TV work?


texts: Specification of mid-2010 15" MacBook Pro LCD panel?

texts:
I've been enjoying my mid-2010 15" MacBook Pro for almost two years now, and am quite satisfied.

However, I never knew what the computer's display's exact specifications are (other than it is LED backlit and has resolution of 1680x1050).

Does anyone have such information? I.e. static contrast ratio, response time, panel technology, etc. etc...

Thanks!


texts: Why did my Mac reboot into the "Set up your new Mac" screen after a power failure?

texts:
I accidentally turned off the power strip that my iMac was plugged into while it was still running. When I turned it back on again, it put me at the "Set up your new Mac" screen, asking me to accept the Terms and Conditions and create a new user account.

I held off on doing so for a while because I was afraid that setting up a new user would erase my home folder and thus all my data. After trying several times to boot normally and failing, I eventually gave in and created a new account under a fake name.

Once I was in, I was able to select and log in to my original account from the drop-down menu on the top right of the taskbar. Thankfully, my original user account and all my data was still there.

What happened? Why wasn't I able to just boot normally after the power failure?


texts:
While two-finger scrolling in Preview is nice, it is not very comfortable when slowly reading very long PDFs.

What I've figured out to this point is that I can use space and ⇧+space to move forward and back a page at a time; and ↓ and ↑ arrows to move a couple pixels down.

Is there any way I can set the arrows to move down a line at a time? (Note that with zoomed in document for reading, it takes 3-4 key presses to move down a line)

Or, any way I can set space to move down only half a page?

Maybe there are some other tips for comfortably reading/scrolling long documents?


texts:
I have tried a lot (even with SIP disabled) but nothing works. I'm kind very desperate since I’m not sure how I would set up screen time to limit my children’s usage of the Pre-installed apps.
The reason why I need to do so, is that my kid waste time in stead of studying. Is there a guide how to set this up?


texts: Get bluetooth keyboard working identically to built-in keyboard

texts:
This is a follow-up question to Are all bluetooth keyboards slow to respond?.

I've been given a MacBook Pro (now running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6), and a third-party bluetooth keyboard (J.Burrows). I have a number of issues with the keyboard:

it's not very sensitive - many keystrokes get missed
if I leave the computer for a few minutes I have to wait about 10 seconds before I can use the keyboard again
it disconnects while I'm typing
the function keys are not affected by the keyboard setting in System Settings (I always have to press fn+ a function key, although the built-in keyboard is affected

I've tried switching the keyboard off and back on again, and I've looked through System Settings, but "Set Up Bluetooth Keyboard..." has no options, even when the keyboard entry under "Devices" is double-clicked. It only has an X to remove the keyboard.

What can I do to resolve these problems? I don't have another bluetooth keyboard I can swap it with.

Apparently this is how these keyboards work. See the reviews on Officeworks.


texts: SSD firmware upgrade requires iso on a pendrive: how to make that bootable?

texts:
Goal is updating a NVMe SSD firmware on a Mac without optical drive via USB stick that should contain a minimal Linux, flasher and payload.

The instructions (PDF) for a firmware update utility say to use Unetbootin on MacOS to write an iso-file to a FAT32 formatted (erased) USB stick.

That works. No errors shown.

What then doesn't work is booting a MacBook Pro 2015 from that stick.

The external USB-drive never shows up in the boot menu.

What I tried:

erasing the sticks a few times with DiskUtility
partitioning the sticks to either MBR or GPT
3 different sticks
different laptops (Mac & Windows)
writing the iso file with dd directly to the stick (and in another round using Balena etcher and universal usb installer)
different versions of DiskUtility (Sierra and Mojave)
Windows on-board tools on a PC for re-formatting the sticks
gparted and fdisk mkfs.vfat  on a Linux machine
using a different iso (not matching the target device) from the vendor site (works without any issues according to instructions, but can't update my device…)
writing to customer support (answer: "iso looks good, should work, please try again")
booting a fresh virtual machine on a Mac host with just the needed iso attached. Frustratingly, that indeed boots as intended, but can't update the device either. Neither a Windows PC, nor a Linux laptop can boot the sticks I prepared.
searching net and especially Ask Different for solutions

The sticks just aren't recognised on any Mac laptop as 'bootable' once the procedure outlined in the manual is finished. All Laptops can boot from external drives (Thunderbolt & USB) and the boot manager updates without interaction once I plug those in.

Possible reasons :
- assuming that DiskUtility from 10.12 and 10.14 can't properly format the sticks?
- is latest version of Unetbootin acting up?
- is the iso for my device incomplete/damaged?

The last item here may be the culprit:

The firmware iso for a Samsung 970 EVO is just so much smaller than for a EVOplus:

NVMe SSD-970 EVO Plus Firmware ISO 2B2QEXM7 | 28   MB (works, unneeded)
NVMe SSD-970 EVO      Firmware ISO 2B2QEXE7 | 17.4 MB (doesn't work, needed)

The EVO-iso is mountable directly in macOS and just contains

 bzImage  initrd  isolinux >
                  boot.cat  isolinux.bin  isolinux.cfg  ldlinux.c32

The EVO-plus-iso is not mountable but when written to stick with Unetbootin it shows an EFI folder and GRUB files, etc… Since this one does boot and scans the computer for eligible devices, I am a bit stuck here.

None of these similar questions on AskDifferent offered a working solution:

Copy Crucial SSD Firmware Update ISO to Bootable USB

Is it possible to make a bootable USB stick for a Macbook Pro to do firmware update?

How to install a bootable ISO onto a single partition of a usb stick?

How to create USB Ubuntu boot disk in OS X so that it boots on *non-Apple* computer?

How to make and use an USB stick with GParted that will boot on a Mac?

How to create a Mac bootable gparted or Parted Magic thumb drive?

Since playing with around with DiskUtilities options it seems to be the case that it is a bit buggy. Switching around between various partitions and filetypes related to FAT/FAT32 results in DiskUtility not recognising its own products, with different options greyed out at different times. Looks to me as if some flag or structural anomaly that DiskUtility introduces keeps this from working, like I might have to really wipe down the stick. Alas, neither wipefs nor gparted did that successfully and I do not know what to look for here.


texts: How to prioritize what access point my wifi connects to?

texts:
In my office we have two Airport Express routers both acting as access points (no DHCP). They both broadcast the same wifi network (same name).

Now, the one I'm sitting right next to was setup later than the first one, due to bad reception from the first one.

Now my problem is, that even though I'm sitting right next to the new one, my computer keeps connecting to the first one with the bad reception. I have tried removing the network and re-add it again, but it still connects to the one with bad reception.

How can this be, and how do I solve it, without changing the network names and manually choosing which one I want to connect to.

My question is btw. somehow similar to this I think: Connect Mac to closer Access Point


texts:
I have a macbook pro, that I use at work and in my house,

the problem is that i have to set up manually the TCP/IP IPv4 address for each place,
the address doesn't change once im on a location,
but I have to change it manually when I go to the office and when I get home,

So how can I save it so that when I connect a specific WIFI the IPv4 address will get configured specially for that place?

Thanks!


texts: Share iPhone Tethering Through Airport Express?

texts:
Is it possible to tether my iPhone in some way to my Airport Express (latest generation) so that my tethered connection is served to all my computers connected to my Airport Express?

I can easily connect each of my computers wirelessly to my iPhone, however, doing so means I loose that local network. If it can't be done with an Airport Express, can it be done any other way?

Thanks.


texts: Duplicate archive subfolders with Mail.app

texts:
I have a strange problem with Mail and I cannot understand if it's a bug or not.

When I archive a message, Mail creates duplicated subfolders. They are called "On my Mac" and they are located under "Archive" folder.

All the subfolders, 4 in my case, contain the same message. This is quit strange since if I delete a folder, I cannot find the message anywhere else (i.e. the message is deleted in the other ones).

Here a discussion on Apple forum where it appears to be an unresolved bug:
Duplicate Mail archive folders.

I'm running ML 10.8.4 and Mail 6.5.

Any suggestions?


texts: Making apple account without credit card

texts: How do I make an apple account without a credit card. I've tried everything!!! I do not have a credit card to make an account but i need to make one to download apps.


texts: Using a screensaver as a desktop wallpaper?

texts:
I've looked around a lot for a way to use one of the screensavers as the wallpaper for my desktop. I found a few options but all of them didn't seem to work on macOS Catalina. The way I tried to attempt this was by using the following code.
/System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background &
All this does is launch the screensaver, instead of making it my wallpaper. Any way that this could be done on Catalina?


texts:
Face ID fails to recognize me 90% of the time on iPad Pro.

How do I know why it fails. What can I do to make it work?

I have read and done everything that's mentioned in Apple Support document, If Face ID isn't working on your iPhone or iPad Pro.

How, at least immediately after saving a Face ID scan can I check that it works, i.e. test Face ID say 10 times.

Now it seems to unlock from wake-up and is working about half of the time and in apps e.g. App Store not working at all - How can I keep retrying so it learns?

have just got a useful message from an app - saying that Face ID had failed 5 times so I need to reenter the apps password.


texts:
I have 2 Apple IDs but I think I read that if you use a second ID, you cannot use the first again for 90 days. Is this true? If so, I need another solution!

95% of my app purchases have been with Apple ID #1, the original one. Apple ID #2 has only been used for a few important and more-expensive apps. I just want to log in occasionally to Apple ID #2 and download a purchased app, then go back to Apple ID #1 for all downloads, purchases, etc.

Here is what we have. It's pretty simple because I do all the setup; my husband just uses the phone, iPad, etc. My husband and I have 2 iPhones and 1 iPad. He is still using a PC after all these years, but I have a Mac desktop with an iTunes account. Over the years I have created 2 Apple IDs.


texts:
Is it possible to auto-archive mails, after sending - or adding a separate "Send and archive" button?

I use the Inbox Zero approach, so now I need to manually archive conversations that have ended.


texts: Automator Eject Action - OSStatus error -36

texts:
Hopefully quick question:

I've made an automator quick action to eject all BUT the disks that are always hanging around my computer. It uses an AppleScript to get the list of disks, strip it of the local HD, "VM", "Home", and "Google Drive", since I don't need to eject those. I pass those to a shell script that just outputs each item after prepending "/Volumes/" to the name. This goes to an "Eject Disk" action, which is followed by a notification. The disks eject properly, but I get the OSStatus error -36, which causes it to stop after the eject action rather than display the notification and pop up an error. I can't find that error code via a google search - any ideas?

Error dialog:

Automator Script:


texts: How to disable notifications for a single mailbox in Mail?

texts: When managing multiple mailboxes, is it possible to disable the notifications for certain mailboxes?


texts: How to charge AirPods to keep battery healthy?

texts:
Once on the official Apple website it was written to keep iPhone's charge between 20% and 80% for better battery life.

I've not found exact battery specs for the AirPods (I am about 2nd gen), probably they have the same battery type as latest iPhones (Li-ion).

So, do I have to keep AirPods with at least 20%+ charge while using? I can't keep them 20%-80% because of case will charge them even they are at 99% battery.


texts: Is there a good email app with text-to-speech for iPhone?

texts: I cannot read small text due to eyesight deterioration and want an app that can read email out loud. Is there anything good that has text to speech and possibly also dictation of emails?


texts: I have an early 2013 MacBook Pro 15.4" Retina. A few "crashes" happened and I ended up resetting my mac, deleting all files on the device. Now when it loads up it flashes a folder with a question mark. I am trying to reload the OS onto the device but it appears that I have no disk to select? When I boot into safe mode and click reinstall OS X, I have NO disk options. Any suggestions?


texts: Unintentional nested list of POSIX paths in Applescript

texts:
I am trying to pull a list of files with matching extensions from a directory with subfolders, to use in a terminal script.

The list items must be separated by vertical bars "|" to run through the command line app, and I need to remove the first item in the list.

on run
    set savedDelimiters to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "|"
    set sourceFolder to choose folder with prompt "Please select directory."
    tell application "System Events"
        set itemList to (POSIX path of every disk item in folders of sourceFolder whose name extension is "VOB" as string)
        log itemList as string
    end tell
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to savedDelimiters
end run

The problem is the resulting list actually a list within a list. Notice the double curly braces in the reply:

        get POSIX path of every disk item of every folder of alias "Macintosh HD:Users:USERNAME:Desktop:test2:" whose name extension = "VOB"
    --> {{"/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/test2/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB", "/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/test2/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB", "/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/test2/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB", "/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/test2/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_2.VOB", "/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/test2/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_3.VOB", "/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/test2/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_4.VOB"}}

When I try to work with the list, such as:

log rest of itemList as string

It returns an empty string, since the list created has only one item.

Thinking I must be missing something obvious... thanks for taking a look!


texts: Create User via Terminal with Bash in macOS Mojave

texts:
In general, you can create a user via Terminal in macOS using Apple's documented method. However, macOS Mojave introduced various security mechanisms that cause scripts to fail when changing user account settings like UID and NFSHomeDirectory, both of which I need to change for how I use these accounts. So, the script to create a new home folder now fails, unless I have a GUI to approve the change being made. Is there any way to create a user and modify the settings without disabling any security settings? There's nothing in the TCC database I can find to allow this script to run, and it's not feasible to run this on every machine I need it deployed to.

I've tried:

#!/bin/bash
new_uid=401
username=xmpleuser
homefolder=/var/xmplfolder
sudo dscl . -delete Users/$username
sudo rm -r $homefolder
echo "Creating $username ( $new_uid ) user..."
sudo dscl . -create /Users/$username UniqueID $new_uid
sudo dscl . -append /Users/$username NFSHomeDirectory $homefolder
sudo dscl . -append /Users/$username home $homefolder
sudo dscl . -append /Users/$username UserShell /sbin/nologin

And I've tried:

#!/bin/bash
new_uid=401
username=xmpleuser
homefolder=/var/xmplfolder
sudo dscl . -delete Users/$username
sudo rm -r $homefolder
sudo sysadminctl -addUser $username -UID $new_uid -shell /sbin/nologin -home $homefolder

They both give a warning box:

I also tried the script linked on this question, and the exact Terminal commands in the Apple article mentioned earlier.