texts: mac merge 2 apfs containers, free container is not first on disk

texts:
I got a used macbook pro off of ebay.  The previous owner had a recovery image taking up 420G on a separate containers.  I am trying to merge the containers, but the system does not like it because the boot container is after the free space so it does not want to merge the containers.  This does  not work: How can I merge primary APFS partition with other empty APFS partition?.

$ sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk1 0
Password:
Started APFS operation
Error: -69743: The new size must be different than the existing size

I think this fails because the free container is first on the disk

Ideas?

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         420.0 GB   disk0s4
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         80.1 GB    disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +80.1 GB    disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Boot                    52.5 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 42.2 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.4 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        +69.2 MB    disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.3 KB    disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Paragon Hard Disk Ma... 69.2 MB    disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +420.0 GB   disk3
                                 Physical Store disk0s4
   1:                APFS Volume test                    639.0 KB   disk3s1


texts: How to find cause of high kernel_task cpu usage?

texts:
Occasionally my machine will have a kernel_task instance max out the CPU:

This can last from minutes to sometimes hours. The machine is effectively unusable in this state. Restarting doesn't help; a new kernel_task pops up again until it finishes whatever it's doing.

How can I find out what this process is doing?


texts: What are the potential consequences of partially-disabling SIP for yabai

texts:
yabai is a window management utility for macOS.
Since macOS does not offer a suitable API to control the native window manager, yabai resorts to injecting a scripting addition into Dock.app for controlling windows. Dock.app
is located somewhere in /System which is inaccessible thanks to by SIP.
For yabai to work to it's full potential, the user must  partially disable SIP with a command like csrutil disable --with kext --with dtrace --with nvram --with basesystem  (Big Sur) or csrutil enable --without debug --without fs (Mojave or Catalina).
This leads me to my question which is, what are the potential consequences of permanently disabling fs and debug?


texts: Using an External HD for Time Machine and iTunes

texts:
My MacBook Air only has a 128Gb HD so I have a 500Gb external HD which I have my iTunes folder on (as I have over 200Gb of music and videos). But I would like to also use the external `hard drive for Time Machine. Will that work?

Will it use up all the remaining space, leaving me no room to add new media?

Should I (and can I) partition the external hard drive without losing my files?


texts: WhatsApp notifications show contact name instead of sender-defined name

texts: When I get a message with WhatsApp and my iPhone is locked, I cant see sender's name as they set it in their own WhatsApp. I see the name which saved in my Contacts. Already 3 days like that... I want to solve this problem. I want to see the sender's name on the lock screen, not the Contact name.


texts: iTunes in Yosemite does not respond to media keys

texts:
My media keys on my MBP for iTunes 12 in Yosemite don't respond. Spotify works fine. I'm using the FN key to access the standard F keys.

These all work:

Screen brightness
Expose
Launch Pad
Keyboard brightness
Volume
Power key

Is this a known issue or something I'm missing?


texts: How can I install Debian on a PowerBook G3 with Mac OS 9.2?

texts:
Today I started installing Debian Linux on an old Macintosh PowerBook G3 with Mac OS 9.2. After a long time of backing up old documents I erased the whole disk. At the end I just want Debian installed, so I did that. Than I've burned a Debian CD (DVD won't work) and inserted it into the PowerBook. I wanted to boot from this CD with pressing C at boot, but I always just get a big question mark on the screen.
Please help me, because I already tried more than a hour with booting the disk and it never worked.


texts: What is the best RDP/VNC client for the new iPad that makes use of the retina display?

texts: I am looking for a remote desktop client to connect to both my Mac and PC. I would prefer not to install any software on the remote computers and just take advantage of the built-in protocols. What are some of the best remote desktop apps that you have tried?


texts: MBP 2015 with Iris Pro Only and External Monitor

texts:
I'm about to buy a MBP edition 2015 (15'').

There are two models:

model having only Intel Iris Pro  (without dedicated graphic card)
model having Radeon graphic card

I don't play video games, and I do not use 3D/video softwares.
Mostly programming softwares.

However, I want to use an Apple Thunderbolt screen of 27'' as external and additional monitor.

Should the model having only Iris Pro be enough to handle this monitor (multiple-displays)?


texts: How to ignore mouse hover behaviour when switching between desktops (whilst using multiple monitors)?

texts:
I have two monitors and four desktops setup.
Monitor1: desktop1 = editor; desktop 2 = chrome
Monitor2:  desktop1 = photoshop; desktop 2 = illustrator
If I want to switch between desktops I use ctrl and left/right-arrow.
If I am working in monitor 1, in the editor, without thinking, I expect ctrl right-arrow to take me to chrome. However, if MY MOUSE is hovering in monitor 2, my keyboard shortcut effects that desktop switch
Is there a way to disable this mouse effect?


texts: Why can't I attach a second monitor to my mac mini

texts: Why is it that whenever I plug in a second monitor to my mac mini, using the HDMI port and a converter to VGA, that my main monitor goes black but when I unplug it, it goes back to normal?


texts: Connection Apple TV to the analog audio stereo speakers

texts:
I have a projector with HDMI connection and speakers with analog audio jack.

I've bought Apple TV and I'm going to connect the projector with HDMI.

However, I'm afraid I need to buy an adapter for the Apple TV optical audio interface to connect the jack of my stereo.

Could you give me more info about it ?


texts: How to disable Spotlight indexing when on battery?

texts:
Every time I add a few MBss of files to my SD disk, Spotlight starts eating battery (per Activity Monitor Energy Impact) for one to several days indexing them.

How can I make indexing to turn off automatically when on battery power, and enable again when Macbook is powered from an AC outlet?


texts: iMac beachballing for no reason — I suspect it might be faulty hardware. What can I do to work around it?

texts:
The Problem:

A couple of weeks ago, the iMac started "beachballing" regularly in normal use
There is no discernible pattern to what triggered a beachball. It could be switching between windows, trying to type, using Spotlight, opening or closing an application, or even just whilst idle.
Over the next few days, the hangs became so frequent it rendered the iMac effectively unusable
I tried literally everything I could think of to fix it (detailed below), but to no avail
The only thing that finally solved it was wiping the disk and reinstalling everything from a Time Machine backup
But about a week later, the same thing began happening again. I still couldn't figure it out, so was forced to reinstall (again!)
And now, yesterday, it's come back once more

I am at my wit's end. I work in IT, and rely on the iMac to be able to work from home whilst my country is in lockdown. My local Apple Store is obviously closed. Each Time Machine restoration takes almost 18 hours to complete, meaning I'm unable to work during that time (never mind the time waiting on the SBBOD to disappear).

The iMac:

2017 27-inch Retina 5K iMac
macOS Catalina 10.15.4
32GB RAM
4.2GHz i7 processor
Fusion Drive (APFS, comprised of a 128GB SSD + 2TB HDD)
T2 security chip

What I've Already Tried:

Checking Activity Monitor during beachballing

CPU: load is usually ~20%
Memory: 0 swap used, ~16GB free memory remaining

Signing out of iCloud
Disabling Spotlight indexing
Creating a new user account
SMC reset
NVRAM/PRAM reset
Disk Utility First Aid
Boot into Safe Mode
Boot into Recovery Mode, and use diskutil verifyVolume and repairVolume
Repairing Home Folder permissions
Checking Console and reviewing system.log and other files

No correlation between beachballing and log entries

Running a spindump via Activity Monitor

Worryingly, spindumps don't show up — they just result in a Crash Report appearing in Console (see here)

Running EtreCheck

No major issues found
No noteworthy minor issues found

Running DriveDx

The results for the SSD were fine
The results for the HDD do look a bit concerning — see here.

Running Apple's hardware diagnostic test at startup

No faults found

Reinstalling macOS

My Suspicions:

I found it interesting that reinstalling macOS does NOT fix the problem, but wiping the Fusion drive, reinstalling macOS, AND restoring from a Time Machine backup in one go DOES fix it (at least temporarily).

My DriveDx results seem to indicate the HDD is in a "failing" state. I don't know if this is just precautionary or if this could actually be causing it. It's hard to pin the blame on this directly, as the beachballs do not seem to correlate with disk I/O, but I can't say that for certain as I don't know enough about this area. I also would've assumed that the Apple hardware diagnostic test you can run at startup might have identified this if it really was a problem...?

So my hunch right now, in the absence of any more obvious clues, is that maybe this problem is caused by a failing HDD in the Fusion drive...? That might explain how wiping and reformatting the drive lets things work smoothly for a week or so, but after enough new sectors have been written to and data shuffled around on the disk, it starts to slow down after time. That's just a hunch!

What Next?

Do you have any other suggestions of things to check or try?
Are there any other clues I might have missed?
Do you think my hypothesis about the failing HDD is right?

If so, I understand the HDD in a Fusion drive is not user-serviceable...
So I would assume the next best alternative would be to buy e.g. 2TB Thunderbolt drive and use that as the startup disk, instead of the Fusion drive?
Is this possible? Are there any drawbacks? Any brands you'd recommend?

Thanks for reading this lengthy post. Any advice or guidance is really appreciated!

Jack


texts: FaceTime HD camera stops transmitting live video in Catalina -- how to fix?

texts:
At some point in Catalina's evolution (10.15.5+ ?) situations started recurring where there’s no video with the Thunderbolt Display attached and the MacBook Pro in closed clamshell mode when attempting a videoconference via FaceTime or other videoconferencing app (Skype, Zoom, etc). What is strange is that the Display FaceTime HD camera is selected and the green LED is illuminated. I also tried disconnecting the Thunderbolt Display to see whether the MacBook Pro’s built-in FaceTime would transmit live video — and it did. But then there was no audio! I was able to reconnect the Thunderbolt Display to regain audio, but of course there was no live video.
The workaround for this problem is to restart the computer.
Has anyone else seen this problem, and is there a fix besides restarting?


texts: Mail.app : What do the padlock icons mean?

texts:
If I encrypt an email with S/MIME an icon showing a CLOSED padlock is displayed under "Security". However, if I encrypt using OpenPGP it's an OPEN padlock icon. Both are followed by the word "Encrypted" though.

Why the two icons / What's the difference?


texts: Can I upgrade on my MAC from Snow Leopard to Maverick or do I have to upgrade to Mountain Lion/Lion first? Also, which OS has less problems Mountain Lion or Maverick?


texts: How to Kiosk Mode a Web Page OSX - Chrome

texts:
I have to let members of the public use my laptop to access a member signup web page at a student fair in a couple of weeks.

Chrome doesn't have kiosk mode on Mac, is it possible to disable CMD+Q, prevent the title bar from showing up etc..?

Is there software designed for this?

Any other advice?


texts: iTunes too slow: how to diagnose, how to avoid?

texts:
I am running iTunes on different Macs connected on Ethernet to download the last iOS version (10.1.?).

Note: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth are explictly off to be sure what I am analyzing.

On these different Macs, the download is similarly extremly slow:

The actual version of iTunes I run is:
    12.5.1.21

The actual connection I am using is:

Mac → Ethernet:    1 Gbit/s
router → Internet: 1 Gbit/s (shared by a few hundreds users).

With the help of a tcpdump -i en0 I was able to diagnose I am actually
downloading an Internet monstruous mammoth from:

defra1-vip-bx-006.aaplimg.com

on port 80 (= http).

A rapid ping analysis gave me:

••My_Mac••$ ping -c 20 -s 1992 -q defra1-vip-bx-006.aaplimg.com
PING defra1-vip-bx-006.aaplimg.com (17.253.55.206): 1992 data bytes

--- defra1-vip-bx-006.aaplimg.com ping statistics ---
20 packets transmitted, 15 packets received, 25.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 27.732/28.388/28.798/0.285 ms
••My_Mac••$

when at the exact same time, a reference one (on the other side of the
world) gave me:

••My_Mac••$ ping -c 20 -s 1992 -q www.cisco.com
PING e144.dscb.akamaiedge.net (2.18.128.170): 1992 data bytes

--- e144.dscb.akamaiedge.net ping statistics ---
20 packets transmitted, 20 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.868/2.990/3.121/0.063 ms
••My_Mac••$

This looks like a network problem on Apple side.
My question is more general than the typical context of this case.

How may I test directly the Apple download server to check where the bottleneck is located and when I will be able to download this version
in a normal time?

How may I avoid an iTunes download when the connection to the Apple download servers is so bad (9 hours in this case)?


texts:
I have a TrueNAS server with two afp shares and an smb share on it.  In the keychain of my mac system I can see the saved credentials for one of the afp shares, and for the smb share.  But I can't see any saved credentials for the second afp share.
However from Finder when I do a "Go => Connect to Server" and enter the details of the second afp share, my mac connects to this share without asking me for that share's credentials.  But this share does have credentials on the server side so I believe that the credentials for it are being cached somewhere on my mac.
So if the credentials are not being cached in my keychain, where else could they be cached?
The reason I ask is that I believe that the cached credentials for this second afp share are wrong and I want to try and reset them.
Edit
I just changed the password on the server side and now I cannot connect to that second afp share.  OS X reports "There was a problem connecting to the server", but doesn't prompt me for any new credentials.  This says to me that the credentials are being cached somewhere.


texts:
I know that this has been posted several times and each time it's a slightly different description. Neither one fits to the behaviour on my iMac (Mid 2011 / 32GB RAM) nor does any of the solutions solve it.

But, long story short.
Any app from Office 2011 for Mac (Word, Excel or Powerpoint) crashes upon rightclick with the same error message.

from MERP it says:

Microsoft Error Reporting log version: 2.0

Error Signature:
Exception: EXC_CRASH (SIGTRAP)
Date/Time: 2013-11-05 19:43:30 +0000
Application Name: Microsoft PowerPoint
Application Bundle ID: com.microsoft.Powerpoint
Application Signature: PPT3
Application Version: 14.3.8.130913
Crashed Module Name: merp
Crashed Module Version: 2.2.4.130913
Crashed Module Offset: 0x00004422
Blame Module Name: MicrosoftComponentPlugin
Blame Module Version: 14.3.8.130913
Blame Module Offset: 0x0000c4d8
Application LCID: 1033
Extra app info: Reg=en Loc=0x0409
Crashed thread: 2

so I took Solution 1 that i found (Update MERP to version 2.2.8)
--> without success :-(

it didn't update correct somehow, in Finder it shows as Version 2.2.8 but in it's report it lists itself as version 2.2.4

Now I found Solution 2 (re-install 14.3.8 aka SP3)
--> no success either :-(

MERP now displays version 2.2.9 in Finder but still 2.2.4 in it's report.

Solution 3 was disabling MERP
--> didn't help so far but shed some brighter light on the issue as follows

Process:         Microsoft Excel [301]
Path:            /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Excel.app/Con-
tent/MacOS/Microsoft Excel
Identifier:      com.microsoft.Excel
Version:         14.3.8 (14.3.8)
Build Info:      Unknown-130913~0
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [154]
Responsible:     Microsoft Excel [301]
User ID:         501

Date/Time:       2013-11-05 20:35:44.179 +0100
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.9 (13A603)
Report Version:  11

Crashed Thread:  4  Dispatch queue: com.apple.datadetectors.dynamiclookup

Exception Type:  EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000

Application Specific Information:
*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException',
reason: 'condition "DDABAddRecord should not be called with NULL type"'

Everything else that i tried before was:

uninstall Office 2011 German completely according to MS KB 23987668
install Office 2011 German
update MERP and MS AutoUpdater
uninstall Office 2011 German completely according to MS KB 23987668
install Office 2011 English
switch OS language from German to English
update MERP and MS AutoUpdater
... (the above mentioned follows here)

SideNote: I have no issues with Office 2011 for Mac German on my MacBook Pro (late 2009 / 8GB RAM) on German Mavericks and I had no issues before with OS X 10.8.5

Any further hints to solve this issue are very welcome!


texts: Are there sites that support editing and ordering photo prints, cards, and books on an iPad?

texts:
I'm reposting this question (unchanged) from webapps.stackexchange.com, because I've received no answers there and this seems like an appropriate question for the Apple Stack Exchange site.

I've tried the Shutterfly iPad app, which allows uploading photos, but doesn't support any other functionality available on the website. And I can't edit photos or design cards and books from the Mobile Safari browswer on the iPad, presumably because those features use Flash.

Are there any other photo websites that provide either a full-featured iPad app (that includes creating cards and books and ordering prints) or an iPad or iPhone app that allows uploading photos and a website that allows one to create cards and books and order prints in Mobile Safari?

Note, I download photos directly from my camera to the iPad, so I'm trying to figure out how to avoid any need for a PC.

Someone (on vark.com) recommended Apple's MobileMe (http://me.com).  But http://www.apple.com/mobileme/features/gallery.html doesn't show that it supports editing photos and ordering prints, cards, and books.  Does anyone have experience with MobileMe?


texts: Font Family/Display Issue in Safari 12 on macOS Mojave

texts:
I just upgraded to macOS Mojave a few days ago and I have noticed an issue with the fonts displayed in Safari for sites/themes that I have created on Tumblr.

It appears that Safari reverted back to the default of Times New Roman and I'm not sure why; this is only an issue in Safari. The fonts are correct when viewing the site(s) in FF and Chrome. It is also only happening on desktop; the view on my iPhone and iPad are showing the correct font.

EX: http://romanoffsbite.tumblr.com

The font I used on this site is Calibri and it was displaying correctly until I upgraded to Mojave; now, it's loading in Times New Roman and I cannot figure out why or how to fix it.

I have searched for this issue the last day or so and all I have been able to find is the solution to the fonts showing as thin and blurry in Mojave, but there hasn't been anything, that I could find, that applied to incorrect font(s) displaying.

(the solution for the thin and blurry fonts did work)

SPECIFICS

OS: macOS Mojave 10.14
Safari: 12.0
Font Not Displaying: Calibri (normal, bold, italic)
Website Example: http://romanoffsbite.tumblr.com

Again, any help with this would be amazing! I'm not sure where else to go from here, so I have come to all of you smart folks :)

Thank You!
Nicole


texts: Select the disk where you want to install macOS?

texts:
I am trying to revive my mid-2015 MacBook Pro.
I installed a new SSD, but when I go through the process of Reinstall macOS, I do not get the new SSD as a choice, it seems like I would have to install a 16GB USB flash drive and store it there.
It also does not seem to recognize the old SSD inside the enclosure that is connected to the MacBook.
I would like to follow the guide below
Can Recovery Mode install OS X onto a blank SSD?
but how would I do this if all I can do is install the macOS Sierra on a flash drive?
I tried going into the terminal and running diskutil list, but my SSD is not found among the long list. It is a 480GB SSD and nothing in that list even comes close.
I installed macOS Sierra on a 16GB USB flash drive, but when I follow this guide:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-mac-os-x-using-removable-usb-drive/
But when I click Option + Power it does go into installer, but then when I go to install from the USB flash drive, it tells me I do not have enough space. I don't get it, I already have macOS Sierra on that flash drive, what is it trying to do?


texts: How secure is Activation Lock on iOS 7 (and later)?

texts:
Apple showed this new feature in iOS 7 called Activation Lock, that if you enable "Find My iPhone" on a device that is lost or stolen, a person that finds/gets the iPhone will not be able to wipe it or reset it. I'm curious whether the lock is designed to prevent these avenues to defeat the lock:

Can they completely drain the battery and leave the phone in that state for a couple of months and then try it?
Or, can they use any third-party software that can access iPhone from outside the iTunes and wipe it that way?
Or, can they simply "jailbreak" it and forget about this Activation Lock?

By what methods can this lock be defeated or bypassed?


texts: Can a Mac use AirPlay to stream to stereo HomePods?

texts:
Set up two HomePods in a stereo configuration, and they act as one pair when used via Siri or an iOS device. Open the HBO, YouTube, or Music app on your phone, and voilà, stereo sound.
This doesn’t seem to be an option on a Mac. On my 2017 MacBook Pro, I can only choose one HomePod at a time as an audio out. I’m running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6. [Update: It’s the same on macOS 10.14 Mojave and 10.15 Catalina… Here's hoping for Big Sur.]
Is there a way to make this work?


texts: I was recently notified that my ex boyfriend signed into iMessage on his laptop using my email address. I have since then changed my Apple ID password and was immediately asked to enter my new password into iCloud. If I changed the password, will it automatically sign out on his computer as well? And, if so, is he still able to use my email for iMessage?


texts: [OS X 10.9.3 (Mavericks)] I've disabled smart quotes in the keyboard settings, but whenever I type ' or " in Messages (old name: iChat), they get converted to ‘ and “. How do I disable this default conversion?


texts: How to read/write from/to a NTFS formatted External HDD on MacOS high Sierra?

texts: With the introduction of APFS in MacOS high sierra I am unable to read/write from/to my external HDD which is formatted in NTFS. I need this case because I regularly switch between windows and mac and hence want to keep my HDD format as NTFS. Previously (on Sierra) I was using OSX fuse on my mac for NTFS read/write support but they haven't released any update for APFS. Any suggestions or alternatives I can use to achieve NTFS read/write on APFS?


texts: How can I repair partition map after attempting to dual boot screwed it up?

texts:
I tried installing Kali Linux in a separate partition on my MacBook, but after installation was completed, I was unable to boot back into Mac OS (displays a prohibited sign). I think everything went wrong when I let it install GRUB, which may be responsible for the messed up partition map.

I was following this guide http://docs.kali.org/installation/kali-linux-dual-boot-on-mac-hardware, but could not complete the setup of the "Hybrid MBR" because I could not get GDisk, as the MacBook's NIC is not listed in the drivers that came with the distro. Not sure if finishing this step would solve the problem, but at this point I just want to get rid of Kali and get Mac OS back to normal.

As for a reinstallation of the OS from the recovery partition, it doesn't look like this will work, as the Disk Utility is showing all kinds of errors when trying to verify the main volume (see image below). Repair disk doesn't work, by the way. I basically can't reformat anything, all the options are greyed out.

I'm not above wiping the whole drive, but then how will I restore Mac OS? I never had an install disc or anything.

Thanks for any help or ideas!


texts: How to turn off iTunes Store localisation?

texts:
The iTunes Store has an annoying habit of localising song metadata based on the system language: for instance, if I have my system language set to English but buy from the Japanese iTunes store, the song name "以心伝心" will instead appear as "Ishindenshin" in the store and metadata of the downloaded file.

Logging out of the store, changing the system language to Japanese, and then logging back in corrects the issue, at least until the system language is changed back.

I tried setting iTunes to always open in Japanese as follows:

defaults write -app iTunes AppleLanguages -array ja

but while the rest of the app obeys this nicely, the store doesn't, and insists on continuing to localise content.

Anyone know if a similar setting exists to set the store language/localisation without changing the entire system language?


texts: How to securely restore new MacBook air after someone else was first admin user

texts:
I've just received my new MacBook Air. (my first Apple computer in 15 years!) Unfortunately, I had it sent to work on a day I wasn't in, and it was mistaken for the new intern's computer. He proceeded to do whatever it is one does with a new mac when one first receives it.

I have the admin password he created, but I imagine I need to do a full wipe to be sure the computer hasn't been tampered with - i.e., a login script exists that maliciously exports my data.

What steps should I take to secure my laptop? What registration etc. information might I need to correct that one enters upon starting up a new MacBook Air?


texts: Can Backup Directories in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup be removed

texts:
I have configured my iPhone to backup on iCloud. When browsing the above mentioned directory on my MacBook I find some old files and directories from months ago which are using up 1.5GB of space.

Can these be safely deleted without incurring in problems?


texts: How to find out which app is sounding a bell, and how to silence it?

texts:
When I put on my headphone I can hear an app keep making a sound (a short bell, perhaps. It's hard to describe in writing) very frequently, almost like once or twice every second.

I have been going thru all app in 'Notifications' in System Preference and uncheck 'Play sound for notifications', for example:

but it does not seem to stop it.

The only way to completely silence it is by turning on 'Do not disturb' in notification centre.

By my observation it seems to be closely correlated to Mail's downloading messages activities

So where can I completely turn off the sound?


texts: Mac Lion - copy and paste leads to files not showing

texts: When I copy and paste a file from one folder to another in Finder on my Mac (running Lion), I don't see it. This isn't the first time. I've had lion for a while now and it works fine. But for some reason today, when I copy and paste. I go to paste, and the files just don't show up after I paste. Is my Mac hard drive full or something?


texts: How can I stop the system changing name extensions of my files?

texts:
I have a created an executable Perl script, starting with

 #!/usr/bin/perl

and have called it t. So when I launch ./t on the Terminal the script is executed and everything is fine.

But apparently some hidden daemon in my computer does not like this, and after a few minutes of existence under the name t, the file's name is automatically changed into t.pl.

I find this unacceptable. Don't I have the right to name files as I want on my machine? It is not a system file, just a personal script in my home directory. How can I avoid this intrusion of Apple into the private life of my files?


texts: How can I adjust the apparent color temperature of my display in OS X?

texts:
I really like f.lux, which is an app that automatically adjusts the display's apparent color temperature according to the time of day and location (so that the temperature is in sync with Sun).

How to set the color temperature manually? I.e. without f.lux?

Sometimes I'd like to have "tungsten" (2700 K) colors during the day or morning, which would require fiddling with the location coordinates in f.lux. Sadly, there's no "manual mode" that I'm aware of.

I'm looking for a OS X native / software based solution, that would allow me to set white point below 4500 °K, which is the minimum that Color Calibrator can set. Is this even possible?


texts: Getting Kernel Panics on a fresh Mavericks installation; Can anyone help analyzing the KP logs?

texts:
Since a couple of weeks, my MacBook Pro has been experiencing random kernel panics. I believe these kps started after installing Mavericks (although I am not completely sure). I decided to do a complete fresh install of Mavericks, without restoring it using TimeMachine. All went well for a while, until last week, in which I had two KPs again.

The crashes seem completely random and are pretty rare. I think I had a little less than 10 KPs in two months time. So the fact that all went well for a while lately doesn't mean much I think; probably pure coincidence... I have a MacBook Pro late 2010 15 inch, 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 and I run OS X 10.9.1. The kp logs always report about a GPU panic in the beginning.

I have quite some stuff running on my mac, including stuff that interacts pretty directly with the core of the OS. This includes NoSleep (which is practically never running, but I know it installs some kexts which I can imagine being loaded even if the actual NoSleep program itself is not running), Tuxera NTFS, RightZoom, TotalFinder, Parallels 8 and iStat Menus. All run on the latest updates. Maybe I should make the upgrade to Parallels 9, as it is currently my main suspect. I have been running a lot of VMs lately, and it is very well possibly that it had been running every time a kp occured. However, I rather not make the paid upgrade as I am Dutch ;)

Could anyone help analyze the KP logs? I am clueless...

I posted the last two here:

http://pastebin.com/3CsCHRsg (KP log 24-dec-2013)
http://pastebin.com/jVmEQsJG (KP log 20-dec-2013)


texts:
I watch video podcasts on my iPad and listen to audio podcasts on my iPod.  Both podcasts sync to each device.  If I delete audio podcast from iPad, I lose it on the iPod as well and vice-versa.

How can I stop this from occurring?  I don't have enough space on the iPad for all the audio podcasts, and can only download one or two episodes of the video podcasts for all the room the audio podcasts take up.


texts:
I have a problem with my MacBook Pro 2010 13 inch, 2.4 GHz. Originally I had Snow Leopard installed on my Mac, then I was trying to upgrade it to Lion (official version from App Store).

During the installation, an error occurred and I got a kernel panic. But that's not exactly the problem. I found out that the laptop had had a firmware password set by somebody (not me).

None of the boot modifier keys (except option) appear to work. When I press option, it asks me for a password. Some people told me to switch the RAM slots or take one out and then turn on the computer holding ⌘+⌥+P+R. That didn't work either. Still see the password prompt.

Any ideas how to reset it?


texts: iOS Bluetooth "mouse" for navigation and Virtual Reality Apps

texts:
I bought a set of BlitzWolf VR Goggles to use with iPhone X, and the headset came bundled with a Bluetooth VR hand controller/mouse.  In order to test this setup I downloaded a VR Roller Coaster app.  And this is where my issues began, as in order to actually enter the VR environment I had to:

Clip my phone into the VR Goggles faceplate, but not close it up
Use my fingers on the phone to select the VR Roller Coaster App and start it executing.
Close up the goggles.
Put the headset on my head.
Enjoy missing out the first few moments of the game.

This is not the VR experience I was sold on.  I had imagined that:

I would pop the phone in the goggles
Place the goggles on my head
Use the VR controller to navigate my phone and to initiate the VR app
etc. etc.

The bundled VR controller did not perform the functionality I desired (and its instructions imply that it cannot/does not do what I want, however it may do so under Android).

Does iOS support any bluetooth controller that will give me the VR experience that I want? EG an onscreen mouse cursor of some sorts.


texts:
I cannot clone any repository on my mac anymore. I don't know since when exactly it got broken.

$ which git
/usr/local/bin/git

$ git clone git@bitbucket.org:myaccount/myrep.git
Cloning into 'myrep'...
conq: repository does not exist.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

The thing is my ssh id_rsa key is still the same. I recreated it anyway, updated it in my BitBucket account's ssh keys, and the same error shows up when I try to clone my repository. I tried the very same procedure on another machine (redhat) and git clone worked. So there is something happening with my version of git.

I thought about reinstalling git. So I first tried uninstalling it:

$ brew uninstall git
Uninstalling /usr/local/Cellar/git/2.9.0... (1,424 files, 31.3M)

but it seems to be several versions of git installed:

$ git
# displays the usage here

$ which git
/usr/bin/git

So I retried using this version:

$ git clone git@bitbucket.org:myaccount/myrep.git
Cloning into 'myrep'...
conq: repository does not exist.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

Still not working. I tried removing those git files:

$ rm -f /usr/bin/git*
rm: /usr/bin/git: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-cvsserver: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-receive-pack: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-shell: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-upload-archive: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-upload-pack: Operation not permitted

$ sudo rm -f /usr/bin/git*
Password:
rm: /usr/bin/git: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-cvsserver: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-receive-pack: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-shell: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-upload-archive: Operation not permitted
rm: /usr/bin/git-upload-pack: Operation not permitted

Even with sudo I cannot remove them, why? Do you think my git clone issue might come from that? I have no idea what to do anymore. I need to use git on that computer so badly I have been very stuck.

$ ls -a /usr/bin/git
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    18K May  5 08:05 /usr/bin/git*


texts: How to convert many .pages documents to later open them with Word using Mac?


texts: My iPhone cable is a bit broken and I often use wi-fi connection of my iPhone5 and iTunes. Sometimes my iPhone is not seen in iTunes. How to set my iPhone was always seen in iTunes via wi-fi?


texts: Faster and more efficient alternative for Tunnelblick

texts:
I have to use Tunnelblick (VPN) to be able to connect to a server, the problem is that Tunnelblick is very buggy and laggy and sometimes also causes wierd problems like overheating when the laptop is folded (it does not shut off). Or frequent crashes.

Now I was wondering if there was a better alternative for doing so.

Kind regards,

Robbert


texts:
Is there a way to access the call history on an iphone from a computer?

My phone has a problem with the display that stops me from using it, it still turns on, but the screen only displays vertical bars, I can tap the screen and it seems to doing something, it makes various sounds that you would expect it to make when tapping the screen, i think i managed to unlock it, but I can't see what is going on.

I plan to take the phone to someone to see if they can fix the display problem. Until then I would like to retrieve a number from the phone that I most recently called. How can I do this?

Also is there a way to redial the previously dialed number, by pressing a combination of buttons without being able to see the screen?


texts: How to get LOG_DAEMON syslog messages available via asl

texts:
I am attempting to run unbound on my macOS Mojave. This works. I can also log from unbound to a file. That works. But I want to log to syslog.

Unbound logs to the LOG_DAEMON (daemon) facility.

So I added the following in a file /etc/asl/org.macports.daemon:

# LOG_DAEMON/daemon facility messages are stored and in a file
> /var/log/daemons.log mode=0644 format=bsd rotate=seq compress file_max=5M all_max=50M
? [= Facility daemon] claim only
? [= Facility daemon] store
* file /var/log/daemons.log

And sent SIGHUP to syslogd. I also temporary put

= debug 1

at the start of /etc/asl.conf so to get asl debug information in /var/log/syslogd.log. There it says:

module: org.macports.daemon
  output         data: NULL
  output       /var/log/daemons.log
    rules: 1
    dest: (none)
    format: bsd
    time_format: lcl
    flags: 0x0000401c (rotate coalesce compress)
        rotatation style: [base=daemons].[ext=log].<sequence>
    ttl: 7 days
    mode: 0644
    file_max: 5242880
    all_max: 52428800
    uid: 0
    gid: 80
  claim         Q [= Facility daemon] only
  store         Q [= Facility daemon]
  file          Q [. ] /var/log/daemons.log

But while I know that unbound is syslogging to LOG_DAEMON, nothing shows. Not in Console.app, not in /var/log/daemons.log. It is a black hole.

I am able to use logger to send LOG_DAEMON messages and these show up in Console.app:

default 16:17:23.352674 +0200   sudo       sysbh : TTY=ttys001 ; PWD=/opt/local/etc/unbound ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/logger -p daemon.error GERBENLOG Test message error.daemon
default 16:17:23.359816 +0200   logger  GERBENLOG Test message error.daemon

But /var/log/daemons.log is not created, and no LOG_DAEMON messages are to be found anywhere. I'm out of options. Does this work at all?


texts:
I have 2 questions. The first is does it matter if the memory in the four memory slots are from different manufacturers? What is the best memory chip for this model iMac? I need 2 x 8 memory chips.

Thank you


texts:
from sudo diskutil list I get 35 of these

/dev/disk35 (disk image):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        +17.9 MB    disk35
1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.3 KB    disk35s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Flash Player            17.9 MB    disk35s2

sudo diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk35 gives a hopeful Unmount of all volumes on disk35 was successful, but if I list it is still there.

Any idea why this happens? and how to get rid of these Flash Player images?

Cheers,
Roberto


texts: How do I route YouTube audio to AU Lab using SoundFlower?

texts: How do I route audio from a YouTube video to AU Lab using SoundFlower so that I can capture the YouTube video's sound stream?


texts: Could I recover pictures from an itunes backup missing PLIST files?

texts: I have an itunes backup that is only missing the Plist files and I want to know if it's possible to recover pictures from this backup? The backup isn't encrypted and programs for reading Itunes backups don't work because of the missing .PLIST files. The backup is complete and has Manifest.db but just missing the PLIST files. I can't seem to find anyone else that has the same issue as me.


texts: My external usb wont open or i cant do anything on it. I have tried to restore it using disk utility but i doesnt work either. PLease help me


texts: Using Command + ` to cycle through windows across different Spaces in macOS Mojave

texts:
I use Command + Tab and Command + `  often when switching between apps/windows.

I also have multiple Spaces that I typically use. I've found that using Command + ` only cycles through windows in the current Space. Is there a way to have it cycle through all windows in an application, not just the one in the current space?

I found that Command + Option + (n) (where (n) is an integer) switches to a specific window of an application and handles windows across spaces fine, but I don't really want to have to remember which window is which number when switching around.


texts: How to download bought apps without old credit card?

texts:
I changed my residence and cancel my old credit card. Now I did a clean install of OS X and want to download purchased apps and free apps (Aperture, Keynote and iPhoto) but the App Store asks me for my credit card info and since I don't have it anymore I can't do it.

What can I do? How to change my credit card info to that where I'm living now? Will that respect my purchased apps?


texts: Can I remove the clip of the iPod nano 6G?

texts: Is there a (non-brute-force) way to remove the clip-part of the iPod nano 6G? I find, I don't use it and it add clunkiness. Also it's a bit scratched since it's the only part not protected by a silicone wrapper.


texts: How to resize the widgets in the dashboard?

texts:
I wish to enlarge the widgets in my dashboard, because I find it quite uncomfortable to see the contents of the dictionary widget in that small box.

Is it possible to do that?


texts: Applescript code to simulate Command and Shift keys

texts:
I am handicapped and use Dragon Dictate 3. I need to take control of my Mac with Dragon, because I am not be able to use the keyboard. I need to know some Applescript code to do that.

How could I simulate the pressing of the Command key and the Shift key to select multiple items in Finder?

First of all, Thanks to adayzdone for his solution.

I tested these with some success. So let me give it to you for helping other user which are experiencing problems.

1) locking Command key on Dragon dictate 3 procedure.

Name of the command (in french) : " Vérrouillage Touche Commande ". Method : Applescript Context : Finder

set _dictateApp to (name of current application)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Finder"
            command key down
        end tell
    end tell

2) unlocking Command key on Dragon dictate 3 procedure.
Name of the command (in french) : " Dévérrouillage Touche Commande ". Method : Applescript Context : Finder

set _dictateApp to (name of current application)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Finder"
            command key up
        end tell
    end tell

3) multiples selections of items in Finder on Dragon dictate 3 procedure.
Method : Applescript Context : Finder

set _dictateApp to (name of current application)
tell application _dictateApp
  set bundleID to («property BnID» of «property cCtX»)
end tell
set _currentAppName to short name of (info for (path to application id bundleID as alias))
try
  tell application "System Events"
    tell process _currentAppName
      key code 125 using {shift down}
    end tell
  end tell
end try

AND/OR in another command

set _dictateApp to (name of current application)
tell application _dictateApp
  set bundleID to («property BnID» of «property cCtX»)
end tell
set _currentAppName to short name of (info for (path to application id bundleID as alias))
try
  tell application "System Events"
    tell process _currentAppName
      key code 126 using {shift down}
    end tell
  end tell
end try

Hope it will help.
Thanks to all
Claude


texts: How do I save iBooks pdf on iPhone to computer so I can delete them from iPhone?

texts:
My iPhone 6s+ is running out of memory. I have so many crochet patterns on my iBooks. How do I transfer those patterns to computer so i can delete them from my iPhone? When I first bought the computer I synced my phone then started deleting them from my phone, then they started deleting from the computer.

What did I do wrong?


texts: Why can't I clear the "Composer" field for tracks in my music library on my iPhone?

texts:
I downloaded some music tracks from the iTunes Music Store and synced them to my iPhone. While browsing the music on my iPhone, I realized the "Composer" field was filled in with the names of the musicians who wrote the songs. However, I only use the "Composer" field for classical music, and leave it blank for non-classical music, so I went back to iTunes and deleted the contents of the "Composer" field for each track, and re-synced. iTunes showed that the files were being updated, but when I looked on my iPhone, it still had entries in the Music app's "Composer" tab. So I went back to iTunes again, and changed the "Composer" field for each track to "Blah", then re-synced. As expected, there was now only a "Blah" composer entry in the Music app. I then deleted the contents of the "Composer" field again (in iTunes) and re-synced. Lo and behold, there was still a "Blah" composer entry in the Music app! So then I unsynced all my music from my iPhone, and re-synced it—and there's still a "Blah" entry!

What do I have to do to get the Music app to recognize that the tracks don't have a "Composer" field anymore?! (iTunes must be one of the most frustrating pieces of software Apple has ever made.)


texts: Changing to manual IP causes no internet connection

texts:
I'm setting the same settings even same router/gateway but it always just disconnects me.  Setting back to DHCP with manual address then it goes back to normal with internet.

192.168.1.3 is the default gateway that is set in my router. i want to set my gateway to 192.168.1.1 but this manually setting just doesn't work.

EDIT: i'm running macos 10.14.6 and macbook pro 15 inch mid 2015 if these matter


texts: ios8 specific alerts for specific contacts

texts:
I'm currently using a blackberry 9900. I use it for work and personal. I have different ring/notification profiles setup. When at work I have it on vibrate or silent but if I receive a text or email from a specific contact then I get an audible alert. Actually this works for any profile I have active; text or email from a specific contact will always push thru. I also have certain contacts who if the call me, I will get a push thru notification but not if they text/email.

Bottom Line - does ios8 allow specific contacts the ability to push thru no matter what the active notification profile is? I need to be able to specify the specific notification ie text vs email vs phone and have different alerts.

This is a make it or break it decision for me


texts: Any known problems with Ruby/Rails in Lion -> Mountain Lion upgrade?

texts:
I am currently running OSX Lion on my Mac and I do a lot of Rails development.

I am wondering if upgrading my system to OSX Mountain Lion is going to really mess up my Rails/Ruby work. I run Ruby off of RVM.


texts: MacOS 10.7 Lion window view disruptions and icon rearrangements

texts:
Since installing MacOS 10.7 (Lion) my workflow has been seriously disrupted by an increasing number of instances in which my folder window view settings and icon placements are modified or reset to the apparent default, which seems to be icon view, alpha-sort, even-spaced rectangular arrangement. Like many other users, I depend heavily on using icon view and workflow-specific icon arrangements in my folders.

The only trigger reported so far:  Apparently, to start disrupting view settings it is sufficient to navigate in a standard Open or Save (or similar) dialog. The likelihood of a complete reset seems to increase if you actually complete the dialog, i.e., save a file.   Are the disruptions occurring just in the folders traversed or the final folder in which a file is saved?  Maybe.

There are at least three relevant threads in Apple forums:

How do keep folder icons from rearranging
Lion Keeps Re-arranging my Folders
Roaming desktop icons

(The third shows that this issue, or something like it, was observed by some users of 10.6.x.)

It seems generally agreed that icon positions and, generally, view settings are stored in each folder in an invisible file, .DS_Store.  Posters speculate how .DS_Store affected: Some say it is simply deleted (mechanism unknown) and then replaced with the default.    The only sort-of practical solution offered so far is saving a copy of .DS_Store when the window is correct, and then restoring that copy after disruption occurs.

While it is clear some users are affected, judging from the proportion of total postings on the Apple Lion forum and elsewhere, the number is relatively small.   (Why? The answer might be helpful in diagnosis.)

What's largely missing from the discussions  I've seen so far are systematic observations, technical analyses, ideas for instrumenting the issue, technically-plausible theories, and emphasis on finding workarounds until the  problem is fixed.  That's why I'm posting here.

I'm concerned that with the small number of users discussing this issue in forums and the lack of useful detail in the postings, Apple will give the problem a low priority. While we tekkie users probably can't produce a fix, we ought to be able to characterize the issue and there's a decent chance of finding some kind of work-around.  There's even a hope that that us "lucky" ones affected can fix the problem by de-installing some old, incompatible s/w that survived 10.7 installation, or even with a simple parameter adjustment.

This is clearly a complex issue.  I find it difficult to understand how Open or Save dialog would affect folder view settings and icon arrangements. (Unless: because you can switch folder views while navigating in these dialogs, perhaps the mechanism is an incomplete or unintentional linking of those settings to the non-dialog views.)  I don't accept the "something deletes .DS_Store" theory because I've seen partial disruptions,  e.g. one icon displaced from here (say, upper left) to there (upper right), and only partial rearrangement in alpha-sort order.   I've seen cases in which a hopelessly rearranged view was miraculously restored. (Theory: Lion keeps .DS_Store backups, monitors the current file for inconsistencies, and --in certain cases-- restores scrambled .DS_Store files from the most recent consistence version.)

Ideas?


texts: Concatenating date and cycle count to file on startup

texts:
I have the following code from here to find the cycle count of the battery on my computer:

system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep "Cycle Count" | awk '{print $3}'

I will enclose it in a simple app that I will put in the Utilities folder in my applications folder as follows: NameofApp.sh.app->Contents->MacOS->NameofApp.sh. I will have it open on startup by means of System Preferences->Users and Groups->Login Items.

I was hoping to use the date command in terminal which gives output (As I'm sure you know) as Tue Oct  7 19:32:33 EDT 2014. I was hoping to delimit the date and the cycle count so I can easily separate it in excel.

The final product I was hoping for consist of a program that upon startup, prints the date + delimiter + cycle count to a new line in a text file (On desktop).

For example,

Tue Oct  7 19:32:33 EDT 2014#776
Tue Oct  8 13:55:02 EDT 2014#776
Tue Oct  8 21:23:16 EDT 2014#777
.
.
.
.
.
Tue Dec 12 07:34:56 EDT 2015#????

I'm having trouble combining the date with the output of the program above.

Thank you in advance


texts: Archive Button in Outlook for Mac Not Showing on Ribbon

texts:
According to the Outlook UserVoice site, the latest version of Outlook for Mac has an Archive feature.

Based on this Microsoft article there supposed to be an Archive button next to the Delete button on the ribbon.

I'm running Microsoft Outlook for Mac Version 15.24 and I'm not seeing the new button. I'm I running the right version? What do I need to do to make the Archive button show?


texts: How do I get Sublime Text's open-file GUI to show hidden files?

texts: I know how to tell Finder to show hidden files, but when I try to open a file in Sublime Text, the GUI that pops up do not let me see hidden files.  How do I tell it to show me hidden files?


texts: Numbers formula for rolling 12 month sum

texts:
I have a table with income data over a 2 year period showing columns: date, description, job1, job2, job3, (the income shown is for 3 different work jobs over a period of time).

In a separate table I would like to calculate my income over a rolling 12 month period but can't work our how to do it.

Could someone help me please?

here are the simplified tables, so with this basic data I can do the basic sum (as sown). but in the complete table 1 there are hundreds of entries so I need a formula to calculate the figures in table 2 please. needs to be a rolling 12 months figure for each heading. thank you


texts: Running a gpg shell script to decrypt a file via Automator

texts:
I regularly need to decrypt a gpg-encrypted file (always the same) to simply view it in TextEdit. I have a very simple shell script for that. It looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
outfile=`mktemp -t $$`  # Temporary file name
gpg --output $outfile --decrypt /path/to/file.gpg
open -a TextEdit $outfile
sleep 1
rm $outfile

When run from the terminal, all goes well. GPG asks for my passphrase in a pop-up window, TextEdit comes up, the temp file is deleted and all is great. Not so in Automator. I select "Run Shell Script", ignore the shell script input, paste the contents of the script (except for the first line). TextEdit pops up with a blank file and GPG never asks for the passphrase. I tried using the full path to GPG but that didn't do it. I know virtually nothing of Automator actions so the problem surely comes from me.

Any help appreciated!


texts: Can I use an iMac 2014 as a display for a Mac mini

texts:
I would like to use my iMac 2014 as a display for a Mac mini that I intend to buy.

Will this work?


texts: Activating iPod that is linked to another Apple ID — previous owner not available

texts: I bought an iPod off of ebay, and went to activate it. However, it was linked to another person's Apple ID and I have no contact with them. The ebay seller does not have the Apple ID either. Is there anyway around activating this iPod without contact with the original owner whose Apple ID this iPod is linked to?


texts:
I had a problem with my Macbook that couldn't read the internal SSD and boot OS X, but I solve it: MacBook does not mount, does not boot, does not read drive .

I used resizeStack method to get the full size of the disk on OS X. The problem I have now is when I press ALT key on startup it shows two bootable disks. Macintosh HD and Windows. Windows was a partitioned disk I had for windows and is empty (maybe).

After using resizeStack it shouldn't be there. When I open Boot Camp Assistant to reinstall Windows, I get the message that there is an "error partitioning the disk".


texts: How best to restore BootCamp partition from Acronis TrueImage backup?

texts:
The replacement for my dead Macbook Pro Retina arrived yesterday, and the Mac side of things was restored from a Synology NAS in 30 mins, which was great...

But on the BootCamp partition, it's a different story: I was using Acronis TrueImage for my Windows backups, and a recent backup was indeed sitting happily on the NAS - but, how to restore it?

The Acronis Recovery CD won't run on a Mac, apparently (and, I have no superdrive...)

After some thought and experiment, here's what I ended up doing

Installed Acronis trial version on a 'real' PC
Connect a USB disk to the PC
Recover the bootcamp partition to the USB disk
Connect the USB disk to the Mac
Install WinClone on the Mac ($20 well spent...)
Create a WInClone image file from the USB disk (slow...)
Create a FAT partition on the Macbook SSD
Restore the WinClone image onto the FAT partition
Reboot, and pray...

Now, while this worked, and the bootcamp partition was successfully re-added to VmWare fusion, it feels like a really long-winded way of doing it.

So, Is there a more direct way of doing this? Could Target Disk mode help (thunderbolt, remember...)

Note - I know I could in future just keep a Winclone backup on the NAS, but then I'd lose the ability to extract individual files from the backup, and also I'd be backing up the entire partition each time, rather than just the changes.


texts: Searching Gmail from Mail.app doesn't work

texts:
The search in iPhone's Mail.app doesn't find anything. The same problem exists on OS X.

When I search a word I usually get no results. It only works if the word is included in a recent email, let's say 1 or 2 weeks old.

Also, there is an option called "Search on the server". It never worked in the last 2 years.

Why is my search broken when using an Apple client to search Gmail?


texts:
Router:  Airport Extreme (latest model)
ISP; local microwave
Wifi Network: iMac, 2 iPhone's, 1 iPad, 1 MacBook
iMac:  Sierra 10.12.3

Wifi works fine until I connect to network with iMac wifi.  It will either crash the network or reduce the speed to almost zero


texts: Find folders with greatest disk I/O or disk changes

texts:
I got to this issue by becoming aware that MacOS's time machine is backing up large amounts of data (say usually 1-3GB for each backup, i.e., each hour) while I am not doing anything on the computer. Now, I know this can happen occasionally but this has been happening regularly for weeks now. I'm wondering what files and folders are being changed and subsequently want to find out by which process.

So how can one find folders or files in the filesystem that are subject to most "traffic" within a period of time (1 day or so), i.e., files where much of the content is changed or folders where much of the files within are changed? These should be sorted by the number of changes (in bytes) per file or folder.


texts: Where can I find the autocorrect / user dictionary on the iPhone and how can I have a look into it?

texts:
I would like to have a look into my personal user dictionary built on typed words on my iPhone. From eHow's article How to Edit Auto-Correct on the iPhone I found the following location where it should be located:

/private/var/mobile/Library/Keyboard/dynamic-text.dat

But my iPhone is not jailbroken so I think I don't have a chance to open this file, right? (And if I jailbreak my phone the dictionary will be deleted…)

I also have the backup of my phone on my Computer. Is it possible to find the dictionary there?
What are other ways to have a look into your personal autocorrect dictionary?


texts: Compression / archival utility which stores the most metadata?

texts:
I recently did a backup of a FAT32 disk which contained a lot of diverse data. It contains many media files, many big binary files, and as usual with FAT32, it has all kinds of odd (but potentially important) permissions for all of these different files. The whole directory of this backup weighs in at a few hundred GB. I would like to have a compressed archive of this backup, but I have a few requirements from whatever archival utility that I use:

It needs to preserve extended attributes
It needs to preserve timestamps
It needs to preserve permissions
I would like for it to preserve as much metadata as possible

I know that there are many different archiving utilities which fit at least some of my needs, but I would like to know of one which fits them all. I.e., which one can maintain the most metadata and also (preferably) has a good compression ratio for a diverse data set.


texts: Is it possible to set the default view in the iPhone music app to be “downloaded” only?

texts:
On iOS 11, the music app has created a sub section for music actually stored on the device rather than in the cloud.

I never want to use cloud tracks, so I would like this to be the default view, but on my phone it always jumps back out to the top level menu. On my iPad, the menu setting seems to stick, though.

Is there a way to make it stick for the phone as well?


texts: Mac Frequent SSL errors when trying to reach google.com

texts:
On my mac, I often try to go to Google.com and chrome gives me an error: "You attempted to reach www.google.com, but instead you actually reached a server identifying itself as www.apple.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration on the server or by something more serious. An attacker on your network could be trying to get you to visit a fake (and potentially harmful) version of www.google.com.
You cannot proceed because the website operator has requested heightened security for this domain."

Does anyone know how or why this is happening and how I can fix it? Generally if I restart my router the problem will go away temporarily, but it always comes back. It has been going on for several months now. The issue does not occur on my ThinkPad running Windows 7, my iPad 2, or my Nexus 7 tablet... only the Mac (OS X 10.8.2).

It seems like some sort of DNS poisoning, but I'm not sure why it would only happen on the Mac. I have tried the following, but to no avail:

pointing my router straight to Open DNS servers because I first thought it was my ISP's fault.
Using the "Keychain First Aid", but no issues were found.
Removing the "GTE CyberTrust Global Root" certificate and that created lots more problems, so I put it back.

I don't know enough to know what to try next or how to even go about diagnosing the issue.

Thanks for any help you can give.


texts: How to mute accessibility options voice over?

texts:
Sometimes when I double click the power button, I hear a voiceover for accessibility options.
How do I disable this and all other potential voiceovers?


texts:
Any idea how to import albums from one computer to another via Home Sharing on Yosemite / iTunes 12? All the pages I've found tell you to click a Show menu at the bottom of the window which is no longer there.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12286
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH986


texts: How to fix AFP where some users connect after 4 minutes and others never connect (spinning progress bar and no authentication dialog)?

texts:
I am having an issue for multiple (but not all) users whereby AFP connections are taking 4+ minutes to connect to the share. Some never connect. The spinning progress bar sits there but no auth window appears. So far I have:

Tested the network cable in a MBP which could connect instantly with correct credentials.
Power cycle
Ping AFP share - working
Ping server IP - working
Check DNS, added manually
PRAM reset
Tried connection over SMB and NFS, SMB would bring up the Auth window slightly faster but still a good 4 min wait
Created new local user account which was able to connect to the share instantly

Dumped network settings and location, which produced a strange result; with the AFP connection pending, ditching the Ethernet 2 interface in Network Settings brought about the connection. Upon ejecting the share and restarting the connection however, the same wait followed. Recreating the Ethernet 2 interface and dumping it again brings about the connection.

Pulling the cable out (with Airport off) brings up the authentication window instantly.

We have restarted the AFP server and all switches.

We have swapped out the Cat5e cabling between the AFP server and the switches.

It appears that all the machines are on 10.7.4.

I have read some posts on Google about NetAuthAgent maxing out CPU cycles, I am going to test the offending machines for that now.

How can I fix an issue with AFP where some users connect after 4 minutes and others never connect (spinning progress bar and no authentication dialog)?


texts: How can I upload Camera app photos to iCloud?

texts: On an iPad Air 2, is there a way to upload videos that I took with the iPad's Camera app to the iCloud?


texts:
I just got a new, used Mac Mini as a replacement for my 2011 iMac. My plan was to connect my 2 27-inchers via mDP and use the iMac in Target Display mode using HDMI --> Thunderbolt 2. Upon plugging it all in (and subsequent Googling), I think I learned the following:

The output needs to be Thunderbolt in order for Target Display mode to work, so trying to go from the HDMI port on the MacMini is no good.
Even connecting via TB, I still can't get audio or use the camera with the iMac in Target Display mode

Does that sound accurate?
With that said, I'm now looking into buying a 3rd 2550x1440 (minimum) 27-incher... one with speakers (which neither of my others have). I've been reading up on the latest mDP, HDMI and TB specs and quickly got in over my head. With a limited budget (around $300), I'm probably going to have to settle for less than the latest of each/any of these... most I've been seeing are HDMI 1.4 and DP 1.2.
I do web dev work... design and front-end development with some (very infrequent) video and/or 3D tinkering.
What advantages, if any, might I see if I were to bump my budget up and find something with newer HDMI and/or DisplayPort versions? What issues might I run into sticking with the lower versions?
I can say I have no complaints about my current 27-inchers (both with HDMI 1.4 and DP 1.2), but I feel like since I'm making a bit of an investment, it shouldn't be a dinosaur.


texts: El Capitan system font blotchy on non-white background [Non-retina monitor]

texts:
EDIT: found solution, will post answer below. Turns out that even the screenshots I've posted appear fine in other devices.

I've received a mac mini from a friend with El Capitan already installed, it's hooked up to a samsung non-retina 1080p LCD monitor.

However the system font appears blotchy (almost as if missing a shadow) on lightish, non white backgrounds. Notice the tabs here:

Similarly it appears badly on the top menu bar (the inside of the '4' is white which is very noticeable on my monitor).

But fine when it's in dark mode:

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. I've tried using 3rd party tools to change the system font to Lucida but to no avail, had same blotchy problems.


texts: Is there any way to encrypt content in clipboard?

texts: Is there any way to encrypt content in clipboard to provide more security and protection from malicious software?


texts: iPhone turning off with plenty of battery remaining

texts: Lately my iPhone 4 has been getting to 19% battery and then dropping straight to 1% and shutting off. Once I plug it back in and start it up it immediately shows up at 19%. Is this a battery or software issue?


texts: Switching to an open application via BetterTouchTool (making it active)

texts:
Is it possible to switch TO an open application via keyboard shortcut in BetterTouchTool?

Currently I’m using a predefined action “Open Application” instead but it’s not quite the same as I don’t want to switch to the app. if it hasn’t been opened yet.


texts: How can apps make requests in the background without permission?

texts:
When I turn on Charles Proxy on iOS the result is shocking.
There are several apps (which I haven't used recently) making requests in the background even though I've turned off permissions for Background App Refresh or Notifications for those apps.
I thought that with Background App Refresh turned off an app is dormant except when I open it?
These apps are useful once in a while but with that behavior I'll have to delete them if Apple's settings don't do what they suggest they do.


texts: macOS Mojave timed bug, Keychain password prompt by system services, Menu Bar disappears, windows become unfocusable

texts:
macOS Mojave version: 10.14.6 (18G87)

I've been having a rather strange, but insanely annoying issue that occurs after a few days of uptime as of late with the following symptoms:

The Menu Bar disappeaars
All running applications are unable to receive focus keyboard input, mouse works and they disappear from the CMD+Tab menu. They still show up in Mission Control but most of them are unfocusable.
Multiple system services pop up windows, one after the other asking to unlock the "login" keychain
Randomly not able to start apps but even if they start they're sometimes unfocusable
Only apps started after the issue happened show up in CMD + tab
Cannot get any keyboard combination to show the log off window or restart to work
Newly started apps have the menu bar show up when focused, when bugged ones are somehow focused the bar disappeeaars
The Menu Bar has the name of another window that I'm trying to click on and focus on. The menu bar is usually non-responsive to clicks.

Sometimes I'm able to get an instance of Terminal to start up and focus on it so that I can just "sudo restart -t now" but it mostly doesn't seem to work. Neither does log-off.

Unfortunately starting Console after the bug happens only shows messages that happened after, not before so I'm unable to provide some detailed debug info. I haven't been able to find any reports that resemble mine anywhere unfortunately. It's almost like something crashes and that crash somehow macOS see running applications as not belongig to my user.

Please give me ideas on what to try as this issue is so strange, I'm out of ideas. Thank you!


texts: Is there a quick key combo that will allow me after typing some stuff in the OSX terminal to move back to the beginning of that line?  I have tried different things, and was wondering if there is a way without setting up something that is custom.


texts:
I want to purchase an iPad photography app now (while its on sale at half price) and gift it to a student later in the summer when she gets an iPad. Since I already own the app, the App Store doesn’t give me an option of purchasing it again. How do I do this?
If I’m teaching her, can I add my licensed copy to her iPad? She will not be using my Apple ID. She does not yet have an AppleID or I’d purchase it there for her.


texts: Airplane Mode and Do Not Disturb on iPhone 4

texts:
I have an iPhone 4 running iOS 6, and Do Not Disturb appears under settings, but Do Not Disturb appears to be ornamental compared to my expectations. More specifically, it at least buzzes when I get a call.

If iPhone's default mode is "push and pull both enabled", and Airplane Mode is "push and pull both disabled," is there a "pull enabled, push disabled" mode? Is that something Do Not Disturb should allow? Or how should Airplane Mode and Do Not Disturb mode be understood for my phone?


texts: Coffee spilled on 2018 Touch Bar MBP. Still working with some problems. What to do?

texts:
Almost a week ago I spilled a full cup of coffee on my Macbook Pro 2018 with Touch Bar. Coffee is spilled mostly left-ish side and it was without sugar but some milk. For now nothing major happened and it is working almost good but clicking on left side of trackpad doesn't working. I can move cursor, tap to click is working but no click sound on left side. And one USB-C port on the left is problematic. It's working mostly but when I move the cable or device on that port the connection loses briefly and returns back. Keyboard is working totally normal and there is no other issues for now. 6 months of warranty left but I don't even now if the spill already voids my warranty. So now I am in between opening the case and clean inside of it or wait till my warranty end.

What do you recommend for me and if I you think that I need to open and clean inside what can I use to clean water, coffee, fat etc. ? I have all the tools for opening the case and I am experienced with it.

Thanks for any help.


texts: Animating table cell color changes in Keynote

texts: Is it possible to animate a table cell color changes in Keynote? If this is not possible, then are any cell-level animations available? I did see a similar question from 2013 here, but I am hoping improvements have been made since then.


texts: How to avoid erasing iPad content when using different iTunes library?

texts:
I have the new iPad and I'm using at work and home.

When I sync something at work (by adding some books or music) and after that at home I want to sync games but the iTunes shows me the warning when I plug in the iPad.

How to avoid this ? Are there some way


texts: Mac 10.13, 10.14 where are the hash passwords located?

texts:
I ran to view the contents of a shadow file for a user:

sudo plutil -p /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/<username>.plist

but when I get to Default it says permission denied, either as a user or root, any ideas?


texts: Bootcamp with Windows 10 can not change display resolution

texts:
I installed Windows using BootCamp my MacBook Pro Mid-2010 on a separate hard drive running Windows 10. I have had issues playing all games on the OS, due to the game resolution being the same as my screen resolution, and I am unable to change it.

My display resolution is stuck at 1680 x 1050 in Windows, and I can't change it. I have all the drivers installed, by using both GeForce Experience AND the macOS / Bootcamp drivers from Apple. The issue is that I cannot change my system display resolution and in all games, it shows my graphics card as the "Microsoft Basic Render Driver" and not "GeForce GT 330M".

I have the latest (Latest drivers are from 2016) graphics drivers for my card (GeForce GT 330M).

When I go into a game like Overwatch, it shows the graphics card as "Microsoft Basic Render Driver" and not "GeForce GT 330M", so that may be related.

How can I validate I have the correct graphics drivers so I can change the resolution in Windows?


texts:
How do I install MacVim on Mountain Lion?  I want to get the MacVim application, as well as the new command-line vim.

I see there are several ways to do it (a snapshot from Google Code, via Homebrew), and if I use Homebrew, I see multiple options.  What way will work best both for using the native application as well as using vim on the command line?


texts:
My DGPU is shot on my late 2011 MacBook Pro 17", and I want to disable it from single-user mode. The problem is that holding down CMD + S doesn't open single-user mode, and the laptop won't boot to the OS. I currently have Windows 10 installed on it, and it doesn't get past the boot throbber.
Much obliged.


texts: mupdf command does not install with homebrew

texts:
I tried to install MuPDF on OS X 10.11 using Homebrew:

brew install mupdf-tools

But when I try to use it from the command line (it doesn't show up on Launchpad) I get the following error:

mupdf example.pdf
-bash: mupdf: command not found

Looking around a bit, I find 64-bit executables for mudraw, mujstest and mutool in /usr/local/bin. These commands seem to work. But there is no executable for mupdf there or anywhere else that I can find (using the find command). Any ideas what has gone wrong?


texts: Backup Synology NAS to multiple external drives using OSX Server

texts:
I want to backup my NAS (currently one folder around 5tb, one about 1tb) to external drives. I tried using gnutar (installed using homebrew) which in theory does what I want, but it can't update the TAR after first creation. I have to re-create it everytime. Also, I'm having a hard time trusting that TAR archive if something simple as update fails with an obscure error message.

Other solutions I saw included mounting all external drives at once and creating a large volume, then use rsync to keep everything in sync. This is the solution I'm leaning towards, but it also feels a little fragile.

Simply copying files until the disk is full, then requesting the next disk would be really great.

I looked at various backup solutions (e.g. Carbon Copy Cloner), and none of them could copy one large source folder to multiple volumes.

I'm having a hard time believing that I'm the first to encounter this problem, hopefully you can help me and my weak Google-fu out.


texts: Plain text agenda formatting recognition by Siri

texts:
I will be hosting a small conference and want to send an email to participants containing a full agenda as plain text or in form of a short pdf as an attachment.
I wanted to format it that way that Siri would recognize every individual event on the list and suggest adding it to the calendar.
Unfortunately, I cannot find any description for formatting.
Usually, I do it in that way:

Start date/time - End date/time  | Event 1 Title | Event 1 Speaker | Event 1 Location | Event 1 Description
Start date/time - End date/time  | Event 2 Title | Event 2 Speaker | Event 2 Location | Event 2 Description

but in that case, Siri is only recognizing starting date and leaves the rest empty (same case for pdf).
Does anybody know where can I find text formatting schemas for Siri to fully recognize events and allow adding them to the calendar?


texts: Recommendations for a good Bandwith Tracker on OS X

texts: Is there a way I can track total bandwidth usage over the course of a month? My service provider requires me to stay within fairly strict limits.


texts: How to change Mac Mini from a mirrored RAID set to one drive?

texts: Just recently the Mac Mini I use for development/as a server had crashed. The most information I could get from it was that one of the drives in the mirrored RAID pair had crashed. Is there any way that I can solve this problem by removing a drive from one side of the pair?


texts: 2015 Macbook Air screen gradually dimming and dying

texts:
This is not a problem at booting up. For a couple months now I'll be using my laptop when suddenly the screen dims to about 50% of normal. According to the brightness indicator the brightness is all the way up; I can make it dimmer, but not as bright as normal. The dimming isn't super even either, there are small areas of the screen that seem darker/brighter. In the past the problem easily goes away if I close the lid and reopen it... but now it's happening a lot and sometimes going completely black. Is this an easy/cheap fix? I'm traveling and can't do it myself. Is it worth bringing to the Mac store?

Thanks!


texts: How Can I Set XCode to Correctly Highlight Multi-Line Strings for Shell Scripts?

texts:
Quite simply I have a shell script that I'm editing in XCode, and it contains several strings which contain new-lines. Easiest way for me to do this was just to leave the string open so that it spans several lines in the file, and as far as I know this is perfectly valid for a shell script to do, or at least none of the shells I work with seem to mind it.

However, XCode doesn't like it at all, and treats only the first line of the string as a string, and interprets the rest as new commands. This has no particular effect on the script, but is a huge pain as it looks messy, and causes it to try to auto-complete things that are part of the string. XCode only accepts it correctly if each line ends with an escape character, but of course that eliminates the new line so is of no use to me.

Here's a stripped down version of one of my strings:

#!/bin/sh
USAGE="$0 [options] source [host:]target
Arguments:
source
    Path to the folder or Time Machine .backupdb to backup from.
[host:]target
    Path to the target to backup to, with host for remote backup via ssh."

echo "$USAGE"

Putting this in XCode will cause only the first line of USAGE to be highlighted in red (string), while the rest are black. Is there a way to force XCode to interpret these multi-line strings, or is what I'm doing somehow wrong and I should be formatting my strings another, more compatible way?


texts: How to extract third party application data (mp3 files) from iPhone6 to Windows 10 computer

texts:
I need to extract (download) from my iPhone 6 the data from third party application (mp3 files) to my Windows 10 PC. The data load to iPhone were from this third party application (radio.kartina) and were NOT using iTunes or any Apple applications.

Any applications I can download to iPhone and/or PC to have this access?

The USB connection gives me access to photos (and videos) only, but I need to get these mp3 files from iPhone 6 to my Windows 10 PC.

I would appreciate any help - name of application to use or detail instructions. Regards, Simon.


texts: (10.15.7) From where can the Quartz image filters be accessed?

texts: I stumbled upon the Quartz image filters when I was building a Quick Action in Automator.  From within Automator, I was able to preview the image filters, and some of them are actually pretty cool.  I'm aware that the PDF Quartz filters can be applied via exporting an existing PDF opened in Preview, however this is not true of the image filters.  Oddly enough, they aren't available in ColorSync Utility either, even though the PDF filters are.  A few of them appear in Photo Booth.  Beyond Automator workflows, is there anywhere else that these filters can be accessed?


texts:
I have a Magic Trackpad that sat unused in a work drawer for a few months. Like a total noob, I neglected to remove the batteries.

I recently reconfigured my workspace and decided to start using trackpad once more, but to my horror, the batteries had corroded and the one furthest in, is very very stuck.

I have tried a long neck, thin screwdriver to try and pry away some of the corrosion around the edge, and lot of banging/ knocking/ cursing, but the battery is still in place.

I welcome any suggestions on how I can remove the other battery and hopefully resurrect this trackpad into working order. I open to suggested chemicals/ power tools etc.

Many thanks in advance community!


texts: How to view previous inputted MAC Address for WiFi network

texts:
I have a Belkin Router and accidentally changed the MAC Address for the Wireless Area Network. Is there a way to retrieve previous inputted MAC Address using Terminal?

I'm looking around system and network logs but I can't find previous records of MAC Address for my WiFi network.


texts: How to keep PowerPoint from mirroring my monitors when switching apps?

texts:
When I'm in presentation mode in PowerPoint 2008, and I deliberately or accidentally switch to another app, PowerPoint forces my dual monitors into mirrored mode.

Apart from shrinking my desktop and repositioning many dozens of windows, this also forces fullscreen virtual machines onto my main monitor, such that I can't get at the menu bar without unzooming them (and consequently messing up their desktops).

Does anyone know how I can prevent PowerPoint from doing this?  Does PowerPoint 2011 do the same thing?  (And does it introduce yet another incompatible UI?)


texts:
Since today, my mid 2011 15 in Macbook pro freezes after login on the admin account. The status bar doesn't even appear, nor the desktop icons. Nothing responds and I need to force shutdown to be able to reboot.
Those are the things I already tried :
- rebooting in safe mode : desktop icons will appear, but everything freezes after a couple of seconds. I believe since safe mode doesn't work the problem is related with the Finder, DS_Store issue, icon issue, or an iCloud issue. So I went to the next step.
- running the disk utility First aid tool in the OSX recovery tools (reboot+Cmd+R) : It says the disk is OK.
- running /sbin/fsck -FY in single user mode : the disk seems to be OK.
I don't know what to try next. Since I really need my computer for the next days, I might go to an Apple store later this week. I would of course be really happy to avoid the costs of that option.

Does any of you have an idea of what I should try next?

UPDATE

As Allan suggested, the problem was my drive beginning to fail. I changed it to a ssd and everything went back to normal.


texts: In Numbers make Y axes show smaller values

texts:
I have a table making a line graph with very small numbers that vary from 0,000149 to 40, and when I make a line graph out of this table of numbers the very small numbers are crunched in a horizontal line and only show up if they are bigger then 1, how can I make the numbers that are smaller then 1 appear better on this graph?

I'm new to Numbers so I appreciate any help, thanks!


texts: How to deactivate iPhone USB tethering when OSX is connected to a wireless network

texts:
I have enabled USB tethering from my iPhone to my MacBook pro, and it works perfectly.

Nevertheless, I would like to automatically disable USB tethering when the MacBook Pro is connected to a wireless network, to save mobile data consumption.

How can I configure that in OSX?


texts: Keyboard shorcut to switch focus between displays on Mavericks

texts:
I was wondering if there was a shortcut or solution to switch focus between different displays since I'm using a mac air with an external monitor. Often times I have to use the mouse just to focus on another application on a different display. Would really speed up the work flow if I can focus on apps in different displays.

Also I use full screen apps so I take advantage of desktop switching by hitting control + left or right thats why I need to be able to first focus on an app on either screen 1 or two then start switching apps or just use the app on that screen.


texts: I can't find a shortcut that's working on my MacBook Air. In Windows you can either click the rightmost part of the task bar to show the desktop or hit Windows+D to show the desktop. How do I do this in El Capitan?


texts: What to do about "File X is not in either expected pre- or post-patch state for Y" errors in install.log?

texts:
For about six hours off and on my Mac has been pretty much unusable.

"softwareupdated" seems to be the culprit. It goes nuts, maxes out a CPU and uses a huge amount of RAM (and then VM once that runs out).

The "/var/log/install.log" file seems to show that it is trying to install the 10.10.4, but for approximately six hours it has just been filling the log with these two error messages over and over.

Jun 30 22:03:17 XXXXX softwareupdated[6836]: Package Authoring: File FWAVC.framework/Versions/A/FWAVC is not in either expected pre- or post-patch state for (package: com.apple.pkg.update.os.10.10.4.14E46.delta)
Jun 30 22:03:17 XXXXX softwareupdated[6836]: Package Authoring: finalSHA1String = 2276768b20f52471f8097c493254cae3f0e2f33f, digest = 1edd7f907902ac44e0d895302abe4fa7d8393e94 (package: com.apple.pkg.update.os.10.10.4.14E46.delta)

Anyone seen anything like this before or know how to deal with it? Google seems to have nothing to say on the subject.

I'm currently running the release version of 10.10.3 on a late 2013 iMac.


texts: Can't connect to Adobe Connect meeting in iPhone

texts:
I can't connect to adobe connect classroom using my iPhone 5S iOS 12 device.
Whenever I tap "Open In App" in the connect page the same page but with the url "mobile.adobeconnect.com" opens.
BTW if I again tap on "Open In App",
It redirects to a page that says "Safari cannot open this page because too many redirects occurred"
Google Chrome says the same error: "ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS";
BTW as far as I know Browsers in iPhone are same as Safari.
Already tried clearing cookies, all data, reinstalling Connect app, and restart.
BTW I tried to join using another device and it worked, Also I tried different adobe connect room and class but the same error occurs.
I know I can copy-paste the link into adobe connect app but our classroom uses a login system and I don't know the password; Also joining using guest isn't allowed.


texts: How to get Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention

texts:
How can I get Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention in Safari Web browser?

Is it dependent on my Safari version, my macOS version, or both? If so, which versions?


texts: what risks about Apple chargers always plugged in? I want to leave my iPhone and iPad chargers always plugged under my desk (so I can just connect my device when I want to charge) but I'm worried that they shouldn't be plugged all the time.


texts: I have just wiped my iMac, and something must have gone wrong in the process as i cant change the boot drive by holding down option key and when i go to install reinstall macOS through macOS utilities when i select the 500GB hard drive the main one it just says "Disk is locked". Can anyone help me with this issue?


texts: FileVault encryption slow when idle: opposite expected

texts:
I have been encrypting a number of external disk using FileVault and have noticed puzzling behavior.  The disks are external USB 3.0 disks.

When the process starts, I can see that the disk access proceeds at a reasonably snappy speed of ~35 MB/s using Activity Monitor.

If the computer is not touched for a while, the disk speed drops to a paltry ~5 MB/sec and will stay that way.  As soon as I touch the mouse or press a key, it jumps back to the ~35 MB/sec speed and will stay that way until it goes idle again.

I would have expected just the opposite behavior.  Keeping the disk accesses low while the user is active provides a snappy UI experience.  Once the user is inactive, full bore access would seem to be the thing to do.  Can anyone explain this behavior?

An example is shown here.  Active disk while interacting with the computer, then slow disk after no interaction.  As soon as the mouse was wiggled, the speed went back up.


texts:
In most of the places, the Mac computers are protected against the malware and viruses, but not all of them. This means that even Mac computers may be infected with these dangerous things.

How can we understand that mac computer is infected with a malware or virus ? This is very easy for the computer with windows operating system because antivirus programs detect all dangerous things in the computer. On the other hand, anybody do not advise me to install a Mac protecter program because most of them are malware itself.


texts: How can I turn off the dizzying iOS 7 motion effects?

texts: My girlfriend is getting that well-publicized nausea/dizziness/"carsickness" from iOS 7's motion effects, though I'm not sure if it's because of the wallpaper or the animations overall. What can she do to tone them down? Are there options built into the software?


texts: Is there a tool or scripting approach to change the arrangement of displays?

texts:
I move my monitors around a bit during the day. Specifically I rotate them or move my laptop to different positions. Each time I have to open up System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement and make the corresponding changes.

I'm looking for a tool or AppleScript approach for quickly setting a displays arrangement so I can quickly switch to proper arrangement.

Note I am not looking for a window management tool (plenty of those listed in What Window Management Options exist for OS X?).


texts: How can I tell if my Mac CPU supports AVX?

texts:
Background info for my particular case (though it would be good if answers were more general):

I have an 11 inch MacBook Pro. I'm trying to run MuJoCo but it says Illegal instruction: 4. Searching Google for similar errors lead me to something saying that I need a CPU that has AVX instruction support.

When I looked up how to tell if my CPU has AVX support, I came across this page which gives a list of CPUs with AVX support.

When I looked up how to tell what CPU my Mac had, Google said to use "About This Mac" which just told me I have a 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, but that doesn't seem to be anywhere on the list, but the site says that these types of CPUs tend to support AVX instructions.

How can I tell whether or not my computer actually does support AVX instructions?


texts: Facedown detection on iPhone 6 with iOS 9

texts:
Apple highlights that an iPhone — and presumably other iOS devices — will use light and proximity sensors to determine whether it's laying face-down, and stop the screen from turning on even when notifications come in.

It does not seem to work on my iPhone 6. Do I have to enable low power mode for this to work?


texts: How to make Safari display forms on web pages correctly

texts:
In Safari, it is often the case that web-form show up in such a way that the text doesn't fit. Safari then inserts "..." in the text box (or combo-box, as the case may be). This happens on many different websites so I don't believe it is a website-specific problem:

Is there a way to cause Safari to style the text boxes more reasonably?

UPDATE: Previously I wrote that things display properly in Chrome - they don't. The UI changed once I interacted with it and it showed the same behavior. So the problem is not safari-specific.


texts:
Can someone recommend a good kit for repairing iPhone 4s and 5s?

We have a whole fleet of iPhones here and they often need to be repaired.  If they are beyond EOL or we aren't getting a warrenty on them, I'd like to be able to get as much life out of them as I can.


texts: Setting caps lock key to CTRL but still function as caps lock if I press for long enough

texts:
I just started out using tmux, so I figured I would set my Caps lock key equal to the Ctrl key.

Though sometimes I do need the Caps lock key. I don't care if it requires playing with the Terminal or system files, I'm not afraid of that. However it would be nice if I could just run Terminal commands so that I can put it in a script. Also, if possible, it would be nice if it doesn't require extra software, although if it's necessary then there's no problem.

How can I make it so that it's normally a Ctrl key, but if I press it for say 5 seconds it triggers a normal Caps lock. I was wondering, how can I do this?


texts: EE blocked my stolen phone's sim, will this prevent Lost mode from taking effect?

texts: I had my iphone 6s plus stolen in a nightclub at the weekend, I activated lost mode straight away but the phone was offline. I then phoned EE to report the theft and they blocked the sim, but I've since realised that the phone has to connect to the internet in order for Lost mode to take effect and lock my phone and enable tracking to occur, so have I played into the thief's hands by having the sim blocked?


texts: Take a photo using Siri voice activation?

texts:
I'm a new user of Siri since I recently upgraded to iPhone 6s. What I can't figure out though is if I somehow can take a photo using only Siri?

Obviously I tried and failed and my google skills doesn't find any information on the subject.

All I can accomplish is to get Siri to launch the camera app, which requires me to enter my passcode, and that is far worse than simply accessing the camera from the lock screen. It seems I'm missing something here.

My set Siri language is Swedish (if it differs?)


texts:
I'm at a total loss to explain this strange incident.  I have a dedicated Mac Mini as a media server to the house, and it has a 5TB external Seagate drive hanging off of it.  The drive is partitioned into two partitions, one called "Media" which is 3TB and contains our household movies, TV shows, etc.  The other is called "TM iMac" and is a network volume I use to backup my personal workstation (an iMac) via Time Machine.  It's been set up this way for years, never had a hitch until yesterday.

Yesterday I noticed that my iMac kept complaining about a problem connecting to a share on the media server.  I finally investigated further last night and found that my iMac was failing to connect to the TM iMac network volume.  The last successful TM backup was yesterday at 9am, and nothing unusual happened all day.  I checked the media server and sure enough, the TM iMac volume was missing.  But that's when things got really weird.  I ran Disk First Aid and found that, according to it, I don't have a 5TB drive with 2 partitions connected, I have a single 3TB drive with 1 partition - the Media partition.  All verify/repairs pass with flying colors.

What the heck has happened here?  How has my 5TB drive suddenly turned itself into a 3TB drive?  How can DFA think it's anything other than what it is?  It would be strange but at least make some sense, if one partition was lost somehow and my 5TB drive reported only a single partition of 3TB in use.  But DFA actually says it's a 3TB Seagate drive, not the 5TB that it actually is!

Is this some strange indication of the drive beginning to fail?  The drive was purchased new and put in service in March of 2016.  Should I nuke the drive, reformat, and restore from backup (I have backups of the Media partition)?  Any other ideas on what caused this and what to do about it?

EDIT to include disultil list results:

Media-Server:Volumes media$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            249.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Time Machine Media      249.5 GB   disk0s4
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Media                   3.0 TB     disk1s2

Please note that "Time Machine Media" is a separate partition on the internal drive of this machine, used for this machine's own local TM backup.  It has nothing to do with this question.