texts: Installed Windows through Boot Camp, can't get back to macOS

texts:
I downloaded Boot Camp on my Mac, all fine, opened up the Windows OS, and it showed me the Boot Camp installer.
Before I could install it, I hit the power button and restarted my computer.
Now I can't find the Boot Camp installer and have no idea how to get back to macOS. I can't find resources online to download bootcamp onto my mac either? I'm really scared.


texts:
Unless I switch back to bash, I now have to spell out the full path for scripts I have written.  How does zsh find commands?

Things in /bin, /use/bin, etc. still work, but things in ~/bin are “not found” even when that path is at the beginning of both $PATH and $path.

After putting

PATH="~/bin:$PATH
path="$PATH"

in ~/.zshrc,

echo $PATH; echo $path

shows it at the beginning of the path, but it still doesn't find the commands.  (And it's not permissions: the scripts work when I type their full paths.)


texts: Bash Alt+Arrow keyboard combination not working in Terminal under Mojave

texts:
I just migrated to Mojave from El Capitan. I am a extensive user of Terminal application.

But I got a bad surprise in this application: the alt+←  and alt+→ that move cursor from one word to another do not work anymore.

Expected behaviour (what should happen)

Previously, using alt+← in this state (cursor is symbolised with |) :

one two three four|

Led to :

one two three |four

This works fine in Safari or other applications.

Example (what actually happens)

Using alt+← in this state :

one two three four|

Led to (in Terminal):

one two three fou|r

Terminal configuration

My terminal configuration did not change since Mojave installation (option key is not used as Meta key)

Question

Does anyone have a clue about what to change in my configuration and restore expected behaviour ?


texts: OS X MacBook remote login with higher resolution

texts:
Is there a way to remote login with a visual client to a MacBook, for example, with a higher resolution than the LCD attached?

Currently I tried VNC (with screen sharing) but that was limited to the resolution of the LCD. I also tried logmein but that had the same problem. I tried to use ssh+xming to the MacBook but that didn't seem to work either running applications seemed to start the displays on the remote machine rather than my client machine.

I'm used to using RDP with Windows which lets you specify whatever resolution you want since the server resolution doesn't matter if you are accessing remotely.


texts: CPU at 100% for a long time - Harmful or not?

texts:
On my 2010 MBP, I want to encode several hours of video, which will end up with the CPU used at 100% for a long time and the MBP heating quite a lot.

Is this considered as normal use (I would say yes, isn't it what computers are made for! :)) ? Could it end up with a too high internal temperature and could it damage some components? (The aluminium case will be hot but the hand is not a good thermometer).

In case this could be a problem, is there a way to cap the maximum cpu% a process can use. I don't really care about the time it will take, I just don't want to kill my MBP...!


texts: How can I resize my Lion partition to fill up the unused space on the drive?

texts:
My MacBook (Late 2007) has an 80GB hard drive. I used to have a 15GB Boot Camp partition, and deleted it at some point -- but I forgot to resize my Snow Leopard partition to fill the 15GB of free space at the end of the drive.

Since then I installed Lion. When I start from the recovery partition and try to resize it, Disk Utility fails with the error: Couldn't unmount disk.

I'm guessing this is happening because the 500mb recovery partition (which I booted from) is in the way. Here's what I get when I run diskutil list:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *80.0 GB    disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            65.3 GB    disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

How can I move the Recovery HD partition to the end of the drive so I can resize my main system partition and get that 15GB of space back?


texts: Set inherited permissions on iLifeAssetManagement?

texts:
I have a second user account on my machine that is only used for iCloud syncing for my wife's apple id. In order to consolidate photostream photos I'm going to set up a process to pull new photos out of her photostream folder and import them into my iPhoto library.

But first, I have to alter permissions so I can see her photos from my user account. I've managed to set the permissions for the "everyone" user to see the photos from my user account, and that works for existing photos. But when new photos come in, they are set where only her account can see them.

Here is what I'm using. Hopefully someone can tell me what I'm missing. :-)

sudo chmod -R +a "everyone allow read,write,execute,append,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" '/Users/Wife/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub'

Thanks.


texts: Partially redeem Apple Gift Card on App Store

texts:
After using £200 of the value of my Apple Gift Card in the apple retail outlet(physical shop), I now have a balance of £500 of which I'd like to put £100 of that towards my App Store credits so I can buy iCloud storage, apps, etc. Here are my questions:

In the dialog to redeem a gift card on the app store I'm not sure if I can partially redeem just £100. Is this possible? I'm wary of going forward with this in case all £500 is redeemed to the app store, which would be needless.

Is it possible to buy iCloud storage using balance from a Gift Card?


texts: I forgot the password to Mac OS X 10.5.8 - Leopard.... How can I reset it?

texts:
A friend of mine gave this MacBook to me because she bought a new one but she forgot to tell me the password. I can't talk to her for some days and need to use the MacBook now. Most probably I will have to boot from some Hirens CD or other similar CD for doing unusual things on your PC or laptop.

I don't have other Mac OS X computer. I only have other laptops which run on Windows.

I also shut down the MacBook and turned it on while I was holding COMMAND + R, but the MacBook didn't get to Lion Recovery mode. Holding those keys while the MacBook is booting should work all the time, right?

I am also thinking about deleting the whole Mac OS X and putting Ubuntu or Windows on it.
However I would like to keep the Mac OS X in it since I don't have time installing new operating system now.


texts: Is it better to purchase 1password from agilebits website or the app store?

texts:
Is it better value to purchase 1password from the https://agilebits.com/ website or the app store?

They cost different amounts, does the app store version include all future versions of 1password?

Which is the best option for consumers based on the license terms of the Mac App store versus a third party license where you buy an app directly from the vendor?

(I have checked the agilebits.com website, but cannot find this information)


texts: How to change the send/receive sound on Messages in macOS Mojave

texts:
I'm trying to change the sound Messages makes when sending out an message along with receiving one.

I've done some tinkering based on info from similiar questions on this site. For example:
Where are the alert tone audio files located in OS X?

Can someone tell me where files are located for me to make changes. I know the receive sound is called note.m4r. But I want to change the sending out "wooooo" sound too.

How can I go about doing this?


texts: Edit Content of IPSW file to install older baseband firmware

texts: I just got this old iphone4 from my aunt a few days ago and it is locked to AT&T... it has already been updated to the latest version 7.1.2 and has never been jailbroken. I have read that the only baseband that can be software unlocked is the 1.59 baseband... What i would like to ask is if it's possible to edit the iOS7.1.2 IPSW file and make it install the 1.59 baseband instead of the current 4.12.09. I was thinking of something like copying some file from the iOS4.0 IPSW file and replacing a coresponding file on the newer IPSW. I have absolutely no idea behind the engineering of these things, so I apologize if I come off as a noob.


texts:
I have 6 PDF files being the result of splitting multiple presentations in PDFs (which had 6 slides on each page). So essentially, now I have top-left pages of all the presentations in one file, top-right in another, middle-left in a file and so on...

That's basically how every initial presentation looked like:

page 1
 ___________________
|  ______   ______  |
| |slide1| |slide2| |
| |______| |______| |
|  ______   ______  |
| |slide3| |slide4| |
| |______| |______| |
|  ______   ______  |
| |slide5| |slide6| |
| |______| |______| |
|___________________|

page 2
 ___________________
|  ______   ______  |
| |slide7| |slide8| |
| |______| |______| |
.....................

Q: How can I merge them together to maintain the order of the initial presentations?

I kind of have to do the following:

for index in range(number_of_pages_in_each_pdf):
   final_pdf.append(pdf1[index])
   final_pdf.append(pdf2[index])
   final_pdf.append(pdf3[index])
   final_pdf.append(pdf4[index])
   final_pdf.append(pdf5[index])
   final_pdf.append(pdf6[index])

There is around a hundred pages in each of those six PDFs, so rearraging by hand is out of question.


texts: Are all iPhones the same across carriers now?

texts:
I know that several years ago, some iPhones had CDMA and others GSM, and others yet had both, depending on which carrier the phones were meant to work with.

But I read somewhere that nowadays, all of them come with extensive network compatibility. AT&T told me that their phones are locked but can be unlocked once fully paid off. So it sounds like there is a software lock but perhaps the hardware is universal.

I am looking to buy a T-Mobile phone, get it unlocked, and then switch immediately to using another carrier.

Are all iPhones the same now, in terms of communication hardware/software?


texts: Delays or skipping for single key on keyboard

texts:
The 'T' key on my 2014 macbook pro is behaving strangely.

It sometimes works, but often doesn't. Mostly it skips completely. Other times it has a delay, such that I type the words correctly, but the T appears out of sequence.  Once in a while it will work great for a minute or less.

I don't suspect a dirty key because sometimes he 'T' will appear after I have released the key. I have cleaned under the key anyway and it looks good. I have reset NVRAM and SMC.

To illustrate the problem, here's this question as it was originally typed, before I painstakingly fixed it up.

he 'T' key on my 2014 macbook pro is behaving srangely.

I someimes works, bu ofetn doesn'. Mosly i skips compleetly. Oher imes i has a delay, such ha I ype he words correcly, bu hte T appears ou of sequence. Once in a while i will work grea for a minue or less.

I don' suspec ta diry key because someimes he 'T' will appear afer I have released he key. I have cleaned under he key anyway and i looks good. I have rese NVRAM and SMC.

Can I fix it?

Edit - answering questions in the comments:

Testing behaviour a bit more, I realise that many of my apps don't permit repeating (including chrome and IDEA). So I've tested in vi where repeating works. The key's behaviour seems more consistent:

There is a delay of around 1 second before the 't' character appears and another delay of about 1 second before the repeating stops after key release. The keypress signal is delayed 1 second.
It seems unaffected by temperature.
As of this afternoon, the delete key is also affected.


texts:
Don't hate me but I love using Finder's spotlight feature.

In Yosemite they changed Spotlight (I like the changes) but they moved the spotlight dialog position to the center of the screen. I want to move it back to the upper right side of my screen (where it used to live).
Also is there a way to darken the background of spotlight results.
Spotlight gets lost among the mass of windows I have open.

Thanks in advance!
C


texts: How do I type a Greek delta with a circumflex?

texts:
I need to create a capital Greek delta with a circumflex on top of it:

How do I do that in Word or any other text editor (on a Mac)?

The file will be mailed to a publisher, so the letter should appear the same on his computer (so the method should use some standard font).

Note: I do not want to create an image!


texts: Why will my MacBook Pro (15" Late 2016) not power on after disabling 'Boot on Lid Open'?

texts:
I wanted to disable the boot/power on by opening the lid. To do so, I entered the below command in the terminal
sudo nvram AutoBoot=%03

Post that, I shut down the laptop by going to the Top Left Apple icon. After shut down, I closed the lid. I opened the lid and Voila, it showed the battery indicator 100% on the screen and then the screen went dark. Reasonable, but not for me. This is where my problem starts, as my laptop won't start anymore.
I have taken the below troubleshooting steps.

Press the Power Button
Press and Hold the Power Button from 3-10 seconds, (tried all)
Tried resetting NVRAM
Tried resetting the SMC, ^ Control ⇧ Shift ⌥ Option ⦿ Power for 10 seconds.
( I am not sure about SMC reset, as the power was not turning on)
Opened the back lid, disconnected battery connectors for 60 hrs, hoping SMC would reset. Plugged in the charger, and opened the lid, it showed no battery in red on the screen. No power on until now
Removed the charger, connected the battery, opened the lid and we are back to square one. It shows the battery percentage and the screen goes dark.

I am looking for solutions to start the laptop. I don't know what I have done wrong, a simple command to disable the boot on by opening the lid and I am stuck with my MacBook Pro not starting.
PS: Apple Service Centre are closed, as we are still in lockdown. I am posting a question after a long time, apologies for any improper format.


texts: Recognize externel hard drive as internal

texts:
I need my 2018 Mac mini (Mojave) to recognize the external hard drive as an internal one so I can use Bootcamp and install Windows on it.

I tried the answer in "How to let MacBook Pro recognize my external hard drive as internal hard drive?".   However, the command dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk2 bs=1 count=1 didn't work for me. I can still eject the hard drive and in Disk Utility it is still listed under "External".

Are there any other options to get my Mac to see my external drive as internal?


texts: Is it safe to exclude Outlook 16.x data from Time Machine backups?

texts:
Every hourly Time Machine backup is quite large for me, but I don't change that many files so rapidly. I've determined that the main culprits are under ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile. I'm hoping I can exclude something under here from Time Machine backups that will safely reduce the size of every hourly backup.

I believe MS Outlook 16.x downloads email messages and attachments
from the Outlook server under here, just for indexing and speed reasons. If I ever had data loss, those email messages and attachments would be downloadable again from the Outlook server. Therefore, excluding these from hourly backups seems reasonable to me.

However, searching the internet for files to exclude from Time Machine backups never mentions this path. I can't tell whether that is because excluding these files is unsafe, or because MS Outlook 16.x is too new for people to have discovered these files. I find the latter hard to believe, especially since the path contains "Outlook 15".

Is there something under this path that I can safely exclude from my Time Machine backups?


texts: Macbook Pro headphones port won't pick up my microphone

texts:
VIDEO EXPLAINER: https://streamable.com/1u1xdz
Proud owner of a Macbook Pro:
MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
Processor: 3.1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5
Memory: 8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
Graphics: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB
I have a Rode Videomic microphone with a three pole 3.5mm jack on the end of it.
I plug this in. Nothing happens. This isn't TRRS, I'm not angry.
I plug the Rode microphone into a 4 pole splitter, microphone side, this then into my Mac. Nothing happens. This is attempting TRRS - but it isn't complete, I'm not angry.
I plug the Rode microphone into a 4 pole splitter, along with a set of speakers in the headphones side. This I believed would be TRRS, starting to get angry.
I plug the mic into the splitter with another set of headphones that work if they do not go through the 4 pole splitter, plug the whole complete connection into the Mac port. NOTHING HAPPENS. I'M LOSING MY MIND!
Why for the sake of saving 10g in weight and about a cm of side coverage would they make this ridiculously impossible to connect a microphone on its own?!
Please can someone guide me to a solution that doesn't require anything more than having a microphone plugged in. I need to use my microphone to speak and speakers to play music.
But even with a 4 pole splitter it is not possible.
Is it possible to use a usb-c to audio ports adapter so all I require plugging in is the microphone?
They cut all these ports off the laptop, but then you have to buy more, bulkier, uglier connectors and adapters. My desktop looks like a spider web of wires and adapters.
I'm a chill dude, & I look forward to seeing how you have managed to get around this huge inconvenience.
Thanks, Jason.


texts: OneDrive folder keeps moving to bottom of Finder Favorites sidebar

texts:
In my favorites sidebar, my OneDrive Folder keeps moving back at the bottom of the favorite list each time I reboot.

Can I make sure that it remains on top of my list of favorites on the sidebar of my Finder?


texts: Is it possible to sync the same contact to multiple accounts in iOS?

texts:
In iOS, when one goes to Settings -> Contacts -> Default account, one can choose the cloud account (for example iCloud, Gmail etc.), to sync a newly created contact by default. Is there a way to sync the same contact to multiple accounts. Flow:

Create a contact on iPhone.
Go to gmail.com -> Contacts and the contact should be there.
Go to icloud.com -> Contact and the contact should be there.

Basically, I want to have the same set of contacts in both accounts without, of course, having duplicates on my phone.


texts: Time Machine: exclude folders with same name, now AND in the future

texts:
I want to exclude backup of proxy media in Final Cut Pro. This media is located in:

~/Movies/Final Cut Events/[Event Folder]/Transcoded Media/Proxy Media

Problem is, when I create a new [Event Folder] it creates a new directory named "Proxy Media" which has to be manually omitted from Time Machine each time. I'd like to automate this process.

I've looked at tmutil in the command line, but I don't think that will do it.


texts: Inconsistent App Store ratings stars representation

texts:
In the iTunes App Store for iPhone, the rating is often displayed near the application's icon. Sometimes, when there are no ratings, the empty stars have an orange outline and sometimes they don't.

Is there a significance to having the orange outline? What might the outline signify?


texts: Is it possible to edit a macOS alias with vim?

texts: I like to use macOS's alias feature to not have to make redundant files. These aliases work great with Chrome and TextEdit. When I open them with vim, however, I get a giant messy file (presumably the way macOS encodes aliases). Is there a way to edit the actual file through an alias with vim?


texts: Process completed immediately after opening Terminal

texts:
After I open Terminal in OS X:

Last login: Tue Oct 28 10:29:21 on ttys000 login(14773,0x7fff7572f300) malloc: * error for
object 0x7fd4bb715110: pointer being freed was not allocated * set a breakpoint in
malloc_error_break to debug

[Process completed]

I have no idea what I did or how to fix it.


texts: Macbook Pro Retina and Dell u3011 video driver problem

texts: i have a macbook pro retina with OS X 10.8.4 (12E55) , and i'm connecting it to a dell u3011 monitor using a mini-display to displayport cable , it was working great until today whenever i connect the cable my monitor goes to energy save mode , i thought this was a cable problem so i bought a new one and the problem still remains , i connected to the monitor using HDMI and its working fine , is it a video driver problem?


texts: Microsoft Excel on Mac Error VBA Run-Time 1004 on Application Open - Endless Loop - Cannot Use Excel

texts:
When Excel is opened - no matter the document - there is a run-time error as shown in the picture below
clicking on End does nothing but brings up the same error window again, causing a loop that causes Excel to not be usable. Please advise. Thanks! This is Excel on Mac. I tried re-installing already.


texts: How to enable indexing for this internal HDD?

texts:
I have a Mac running Mojave (10.14.6) with a new 2TB internal HDD with an APFS volume (called "Tár"). No matter what I try, I get "Indexing disabled" whenever I try running sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Tár/. All other volumes are indexing fine and the volume itself is working properly.
If I look at the Console after running the mdutil command, I see the following in the output:
mds nosymlink_mkdir() unable to realpath or parent paths do not match p:/Volumes/Tár/.Spotlight-V100: r:/Volumes/Tár:
mds Unable to create/find index location <private> 0

There's no .metadata_never_index file anywhere.
Trying to add the volume to the privacy excluded folders in Spotlight settings and then removing it doesn't help either.

What's wrong with this? How can I get this volume indexed?
edit:
diskutil list output:
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *960.2 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s1
   2:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data Windows rendszer        314.6 GB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data Közös                   645.0 GB   disk0s4
   5:           Windows Recovery                         530.6 MB   disk0s5

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         499.9 GB   disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk4         2.0 TB     disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +499.9 GB   disk3
                                 Physical Store disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume macOS                   403.4 GB   disk3s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 45.3 MB    disk3s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.4 MB   disk3s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk3s4

/dev/disk4 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +2.0 TB     disk4
                                 Physical Store disk2s2
   1:                APFS Volume Tár                     179.2 GB   disk4s1

mount:
$ mount
/dev/disk3s1 on / (apfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
/dev/disk3s4 on /private/var/vm (apfs, local, noexec, journaled, noatime, nobrowse)
/dev/disk4s1 on /Volumes/Tár (apfs, local, journaled)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
/dev/disk0s3 on /Volumes/Windows rendszer (ntfs, local, read-only, noowners)
/dev/disk0s4 on /Volumes/Közös (exfat, asynchronous, local, noowners)


texts: Verification failed An unknown error occured on sign in

texts:
After update to Catalina, I got the following error message: "Verification Failed. An unknown error occurred".

Should I reset mac? v. 10.15.2


texts:
My Mac is typing wrong letters when I press button W it's typing WE , when I press E it's typing WE Likewise 2 =23, 3=23, C=XC, X=XC,  D=SD, S=SD,

I am using a MacBook Air (2018).

When I'm using a USB Keyboard I don't have this problem


texts: App to organize my photos into folders by date

texts: Is there an app on OS X that can sort through all your photos within a folder and organize them into folders and name each folder the date it was taken.


texts: Hide all files of the same extension in Finder

texts: I need to hide all files with .pek extension on Finder (macOS Sierra) automatically.


texts:
After upgradering to Mavericks, I have been bombarded repeatedly with the following prompt:

  Messages agent wants to use your confidential information stored in “” in your keychain
  [Allow] [Always allow] [Deny]

No matter how many times each option is used, the popup appears again after a very short while (usually less than 15 seconds).

Erasing the Messages.app/iChat-related preference files from ~/Library/Preferences/ did not work.


texts: Add command to sudo in OS X - or how to fix a major security inconsistency in OS X

texts:
OS X provides Keychain Access, which is a great way to save passwords of varying apps and websites. When you want to view a password via the Keychain Access GUI, you are asked the admin password. However, OS X also provides a command to export all Keychain Access passwords to a text file, unencrypted:

security dump-keychain -d login.keychain > keychain.txt

This command does not require sudo privileges.

So I have two questions:

How can I add the sudo privilege requirement to the security command.
Is this behaviour intended or is it a major inconsistency with regards to security concerns at Apple ?


texts: WifiDiagnostics files filling up drive even with logging disabled

texts:
Since upgrading to OS X Catalina, I started getting disk full notifications. After some looking, I discovered the cause is ~400 MB files in /private/var/tmp like this:

WiFiDiagnostics_2019-10-23_12.58.55.713_Mac OS X_MacBookPro15,4_19A602.tgz

Option-clicking on the wifi icon in the menu bar shows "Enable Wi-Fi Logging" (indicating it's disabled; if it's enabled, it shows "Disable…").

My findings so far:

It seems to happen more frequently on certain wifi networks than others.
It seems to happen more when Wireguard is running, and more when Wireguard is in use for a VPN. (It still happens with Wireguard quit, but not as much, it seems.)
At one point, it was creating a new file (~400mb) every 5 minutes.
I've tried enabling and disabling wifi logging, without luck.

I haven't been able to find anything on google. How do I stop the auto-generation of diagnostic logs?

Update: I've updated to 10.15.1, and also did an OS reinstall (not full disk wipe), and am still getting the log files appearing.

Update 2, Resolution? Short version: Somehow the command+option+control+shift+w key combo is triggering this.

Longer version: I did a full disk wipe and reinstall, then kept an eye on when this issue reappeared and installed my normal apps slowly. This file reappeared once I installed Karabiner to make my caps-lock key map to command+control+option+shift, which I use with Alfred App to make application keyboard shortcuts.

One of the shortcuts I made was command+control+option+shift+w to open iTerm. I'd noticed before that hitting this key combination made the screen flash white, but I couldn't find any information (at all, anywhere) nor any existing keyboard shortcuts indicating what that key combination would do. But sure enough, 5 minutes later, I had the log file show up.

My belief at this point is that that particular keyboard shortcut, command+option+control+shift+w, triggers something in OS X (possibly Catalina only; I don't have an older OS to test against) that starts the wifi logging.

I'm super interested to know how/why/where shift+control+option+command+w is actually being mapped. I've tried figuring out the com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist file but without luck. I also tried that key combo on another Catalina install and it doesn't seem to do the same thing, so perhaps there's another app I have installed that configured that keyboard shortcut. But at this point I don't have the time to re-wipe the computer and set it up again to track it down.


texts:
I'm a heavy user of the AirPods 1st Generation, probably using them for 6–10 hours daily. Currently, my left AirPod has gradually, but also quite dramatically, lost its volume capacity over the course of a couple of weeks.
It would be vital for you to know, that this is not the first time this has happened. I have been an AirPods owner for about 1.5 years, but during that time this problem has occurred with both my Left and Right AirPods multiple times at different occasions. I have been able to get replacement units from Apple as the decreases in volume has been significant. I believe my current Left AirPod is the fourth unit I've owned which exhibits this problem.
I need to pan the audio in the system to achieve a rough L–R equilibrium. Currently, I need to pan the volume 50% Left from the Middle, which indicates a 50% volume loss.
While the deterioration has been slightly gradual, it may also occur dramatically and suddenly. In fact, two times (with different units) the volume capacity has gone jumped from unnoticeable to about 20% loss and then almost 50% loss over the course of a week or two. This would suggest to me that it's not due to earwax buildup, but something technical, but I'm not sure.
I have tried the AirPods on multiple systems, so I know it's something relating to the unit and not the OS. I have tried cleaning them quite routinely, even by following this suggestion to suck on it to remove potentially clogging earwax from the behind the membrane. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to help.
Does anyone know what the problem can be, and how to fix it? If it's likely due to dirt, is there a sure-fire effective way to clean them? For equipment at this price, it doesn't feel satisfactory that they lose significant volume over time.

Update regarding AirPods Pro: I now own the AirPods 1st Generation, and also since six months back the AirPods Pro. The problem of suddenly and significantly losing volume – as described above – has been delimited to only the 1st Generation AirPods so far, and this has happened at least with 3–4 pairs of these 1st Generation AirPods that I have replaced thanks to the multi-year consumer protection laws in my country. They have failed every six months or so.
The AirPods Pro have not exhibited the problem of suddenly losing significant volume, after six months of usage. Apple may have resolved the issue, but it remains to be seen. However, the AirPods Pro does lose volume gradually due to continual use, despite cleaning. Max volume is perhaps 20–30% less than upon purchase. I would recommend people to replace their AirPods after the damage becomes significant enough, because I view gradual loss of volume as a product failure.


texts: Any Pitfalls in Replacing gcc and g++ With GNU Versions?

texts:
I understand that Clang is the default and recommended compiler for MacOS. By default macOS has binaries for gcc and g++ in /usr/bin/ which are same as clang and clang++.

What are the possible issues (if any), if I replace the default macOS binaries for gcc and g++ binaries with the GNU versions?


texts: Thunderbolt ports on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) stopped working

texts:
I purchased my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) just a few months ago for one specific purpose. I use it at my church to run the projector. It's connected through VGA, so I've been using a MiniDisplay to VGA adaptor (Apple Online Store). It worked great until last week. All the sudden it wouldn't recognize the Projector display. Sometimes I can get it to work for 30 seconds or so, then it may flicker in and out some and go away or sometimes it just drops the signal right off the bat. During troubleshooting I tried hooking into a couple flat screens via VGA and got the same thing. I've confirmed that everything else from the projector to the adaptor work correctly.

At first I thought it may be a short in the MiniDisplay to VGA adaptor so I  bought 2 more adaptors and tried them and still had the same problem. My friend brought his Macbook Pro and it worked perfect using all 3 adaptors. So I've been able to narrow the problem down to the MBP, but I have no clue what it could be. I've tried resetting PRAM and Management Unit even though I don't think that applies to the MBP.

I'm running Yosemite 10.10.5. I haven't upgraded to El Capitan yet due to my presenter software not being compatible with it yet. I would really appreciate any advice. Not sure if this is a software or hardware issue either? Thank you in advance!


texts: How to stop Mountain Lion to stop shutting down and closing all my applications?

texts:
I tried to look up related problems with this, but I haven't been able to find a solution. After leaving my computer on, charged, and step away, sometimes it logs my account off. When I come back, log on, all my applications have been turned off. I have adjusted the settings under "Energy Saver" and allow the computer a longer sleep time, but that doesn't seem to work.

OS X Version 10.8.2
Any suggestions?


texts: How do I get rid of orphaned application entries after uninstallation?

texts:
Orphaned Entry in Default Calendar App Preferences (OS X Yosemite)?

The image below is the preferences pane in Calendar.app. This is where the user sets the default calendar app used by OS X globally. In OS X 10 this is set to Calendar.app by default. I use Fantastical 2 as my default calendar app. The problem is an orphaned entry is appearing -specifically MobileCal.app- (as can be seen in the image below). As far as I can recall I've never installed an app called MobileCal. Please let me know i) how to remove this orphaned entry and ii) how it got there in the first place. I'm running OS X Yosemite 10.0.3. Thanks! Additionally I'm receiving the following error when I attempt to open a reminder from Spotlight Search:


texts: How to Listen For an Application Launch Event on Mac OS X

texts:
I wrote an AppleScript to mount a bundled sparse disk image. I want this script to be executed exactly when Time Machine launches.

I can check if Time Machine is running with on idle statement,

on idle
    ....
    return <interval>
end idle

but I'm pretty sure, it isn't a robust way to do that.

IMO making an event trigger for Application Launch event would be a better approach.

I appreciate if someone can help me.


texts: MacBook Pro 2017 doesn't connect Dell U2713HM via (Hama) USB-C to DisplayPort adapter but MacBook 2016 works

texts:
I am trying to connect MacBook Pro 2017 to Dell U2712HM monitor. I bought Hama USB-C to Display Port adapter but it does not work with MBP 2017. When I plugged it, it does not recognize it - nothing happens. Strange enough, the same adapter works just fine with MacBook 2016. I read that Apple has changed USB-C in some way for 2017 version.

So, if this is true, is there USB-C to DisplayPort cable (adapter) that actually works with 2017 MacBooks?  Or is there some USB-C to USB-C adapter that provide functionality of 2016 USB-C? Actually, Hyper support told me that I should buy their hub (https://www.hypershop.com/collections/usb-type-c/products/hyperdrive-hub-for-usb-c-macbook-pro-13-and-15-2016-2017) and use hub's primary USB-C port to connect USB-C to DP cable.


texts: Restoring new iPhone from iCloud backup deactivates old iphone?

texts:
I gave a friend a new SIM card for her unlocked direct from Apple iPhone 5.

She put the SIM in, and went through the setup process, restoring her iPhone 5 from an iCloud backup.  At this point, her old phone lost all signal and refuses to connect to any carrier.

She did not go through any activation process specifically as you would on a new phone, but I think that what has happened is that the activation has occurred as part of the restore process, and that this has somehow deactivated her previous phone.

Can anyone clear up what the activation process does, if it can be done automatically as part of a restore, and if this is what happened tell me how I can re-activate her old phone without a factory reset?


texts: Can I add folder keyboard shortcuts? (like there are for Home, Downloads, etc)

texts:
Finder's Go menu shows a bunch of keyboard shortcuts for many standard folders:

So within Finder, but also within the Open or Save File dialogs of other applications, I can use ⇧+⌘+O to go to my Documents folder, or ⇧+⌥+L for my Downloads folder, et cetera.

I happily use this hundreds of times a day.

Can I add my own keyboard shortcuts here? For example, as a Developer, I often find myself going to my ~/Code folder by pressing ⇧+⌘+H for Home, then navigating to Code. But I'd rather press something like ⇧+⌥+C to go there directly.

Is this possible, and if yes, how?


texts: How to enable display on Dell monitor connected to MacBook Pro when not charging?

texts:
I've just purchased a Dell P2415Q monitor which I've connected up to my MacBook Pro (running OS X El Capitan). Everything works great in terms of the display, however I've noticed that it goes into power-saving mode (i.e. shuts off the display) as soon as I disconnect my MacBook Pro from its power source.

Given the battery is already charged up I don't want to keep it plugged in as I suspect it will damage the battery life if I keep it that way for a long time (and I do intend to take my MacBook Pro out and about for other uses).

Does anybody know how I can make the display work irrespective of whether my MacBook Pro is connected to it's power source or not?


texts: What are the consequences of upgrading to OS X 10.7 Lion if I have a separate Boot Drive and Home folder drive in my MacBook Pro?

texts:
I have an early-2011 MacBook Pro 15" with a 128GB SSD. I replaced the built-in SuperDrive with a 750GB MCE OptiBay HD, so my boot drive is the 128GB SSD (speed!) and I have moved over most of my Home folder except for Applications and Library to the 750GB HD (storage!). To make it all work smoothly, I followed TUAW's advice found here.

My directory structure looks like:

SSD (Boot)

Applications
Developer
Library
opt
System
Users

HD (Storage)

Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Dropbox
Library (the other one)
Movies
Music
Pictures
Public
Sites

So, my concern is that upgrading to Lion will eradicate this structure in some way and that I will have to do a special install. Has anyone tried this yet and can you tell me if there are any pitfalls I need to be aware of?


texts: Volume not recovering after a FaceTime call

texts:
Not sure if this issue started with High Sierra or Sierra, but definitely have been coming across this issue more and more often.

Like it or not, FaceTime ducks the volume of every other source during a call. And sometimes, after clicking the hang up button, volumes are not restored back to normal.

Is there any way to force this back to normal? Restarting an audio service maybe? I'd prefer not to restart the whole system every time. Thank you.


texts:
Using Apple Numbers a lot on my iPad iOS 9.2.1

Due to the limited availability, I haven't seen anyone sporting an Apple Pencil with an iPad Pro. Stores in my area have the iPad Pro but no Pencil.

Does Numbers on the iPad pro allow you to sketch with the Apple Pencil? What happens when you sketch on the Numbers canvas? Can you freehand a simple sketch?


texts: Are there special boolean search operations (AND,OR, NOT) for iOS mail app?

texts:
I got like 11000 emails available through the iOS mail app, and single keyword search no longer works for me. I would like to exclude specific words, like in google: (food -fast).

Are there special boolean operations or shortcuts availble to be entered into the iOS mail app?


texts: Is there any way for me to view a webpage on my iphone in Safari offline?

texts:
I need for the javascript and css to work (though naturally I understand anything that makes external requests will not work, this is fine). I am happy to download the html files and assorted assets if it helps though I suspect it will not.
'Reading List' does nothing for me. Safari is enabled to back up to my iCloud, I have safari set to automatically save offline. But every webpage (e.g. a wikipedia article) I have picked, if I add it to the reading list and then go offline, it tells me I can't view it.


texts: Hide SSID from the list of available wifi networks in macOS?

texts:
Is there any way to hide particular SSID names from the list of available networks?

Below command gives list of wifi networks,

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -s

how can I hide particular SSID from the above list?

Below command is only removing from preferred networks list

networksetup -removepreferredwirelessnetwork en0 AC_BYOD

I don't even want see the same on the wifi window on the MacBook status bar.

is it possible to filter SSIDs on OSX?


texts: iPhone SE bought on eBay no longer working

texts:
I bought an unlocked iPhone SE on eBay Germany six months ago with no Apple guarantee but a 2 year Apple Agent guarantee. Here's what the offer said:

No Apple Garantie.
2 Jahr garantie vom Apple-Agent.

The iPhone is falling apart (the screen is popping out of the frame).  I have contacted Apple and did a warranty check and the iPhone is not under warranty.

I have the receipt and wonder why the warranty is not valid?


texts: really bad power consumption on mid-2013 MacBook Air

texts:
I'm getting a really bad power consumption on my mid-2013 MacBook Air 11" w/ OS X 10.9.4.  I think the issue is that I have too many tabs open in Safari and SeaMonkey, and they're all taking a lot of power.

It seems that even having all such tabs minimised still lets them suck out all the power out of my Mac.

Is there a way to improve power consumption?  Looks like I'm only getting some 2 or 3 hours (instead of 9) on a nearly brand new machine that has been unboxed just a couple of months ago in the summer of 2014, with the battery only having 36 cycles on.


texts: Unable to login to MacBook, worked fine with Active Directory account on corp. network

texts:
My IT dept setup my new MacBook Pro with 2 accounts. One is a local account and the other is on the Active Directory server. Both have administrative privileges on the mac.

I've been using the AD account to setup apps while on the corporate network (wired and/or wi-fi). My standard 'shutdown' procedure is simply to close the lid. There's a setting that will prompt for password after 15 minutes, so I can close it, walk to a conference room, open it and start typing w/o password, whereas if I unplug and lock it in the desk drawer for the night, I'll need to type a password after flipping it open.

Today, for the first time, I opened it while NOT on the corporate network. Many miles away from it, infact. I had closed it while using my AD account, so I typed in those credentials--and was denied. I tried again, one careful keypress at a time, verified caps lock off, etc. and still I was told invalid username or password.

So I tried the local account credentials. Those also failed.

How do I get back into my Mac?


texts: How to manage Skim Notes within DevonThink?

texts:
I see that there are a lot of posts about automated ways to get annotations and notes from Skim PDFs into DevonThink. However, it seems like there's no easy way to automate that, which is fine. I usually read and highlight a PDF all in one shot, so I don't mind just doing "Export Notes to Text" in Skim when I'm done going through a PDF.

Once I do that, what's the best way to manage Skim Notes?

What's the best way to manually import Skim Notes into DevonThink? Do I need to "Export Notes as Text" first?
Is there a way to connect the Skim Notes text file with the corresponding PDF that I also have in my DevonThink database?
I'd like to use the auto See Also/Classify thing with the Skim Notes only, as a way for DevonThink to tell me what PDFs are related, but I want DevonThink to do that using ONLY my highlights (i.e. the parts of the PDF I deemed to be most important). What's the best way to do this?


texts: Can`t log in to MacBook Pro after starting encryption for home drive. What can I do now?

texts:
here we have another beautiful case of "Don't expect your Mac to be reliable by itself" What happened is as follows:

I decided to encrypt all my data. Since I have a second hard drive in my MacBook I have my home drive on it, and hence not on the same drive as the OS. Encrypting the drive with the OS was easily solved via FileVault. Once that was done I checked online to see if I can encrypt the home drive as well, and found the solution to just right click and press "Encrypt."

At this point I assumed Mac OS will have some sort of system recognizing the fact that my home folder is on that drive and will handle the encryiption accordingly. I was WRONG. And now I can`t log in ... From what I can tell this is due to the fact that the home drive is not loaded prior to logging in (and on the other hand is necessary to log in).

Has anyone got an idea how I can handle this situation?

Thanks!
Tired greetings,
Alex


texts: Why has iTunes not found/downloaded all of my purchased songs?

texts: I have just purchased a new Macbook pro and I began to set up iTunes and download my 1000+ songs that I have purchased on iTunes. Upon going through the 'purchased' button on the iTunes store, only 580 songs have been downloaded and iTunes is now telling me there are no more songs to download, though clearly there are still 500+ more songs that I own but cannot find anywhere. Why is this and where can I find the rest of the songs? Thank you


texts: Use the Downloads folder as shared folder between two Macs with Dropbox

texts:
I would like to have the Downloads folder of my Mac shared between two Macs using Dropbox. The idea is to have the same archives in both Download folders.

How can I accomplish this?


texts: When does my one-to-one subscription expire?

texts:
I recently ordered a new MacBook Pro and a One to One membership online. I got an email saying that my MBP will arrive in "3 or 4 weeks". I also got an email saying "Thank you for joining One to One. Please activate your membership online".

Does my one-to-one membership expire 12 months from receipt of this email or 12 months after I activate it?

In other words, if I activate it now, I can imagine it will expire 11 months after I receive my MacBook Pro. But if I activate one-to-one when my MacBook Pro arrives, will I have wasted a month of One to One?


texts: Prevent OS X from changing Spaces after quitting an App?

texts:
After quitting an application, the previous app that I was interacting with is automatically selected. If I was working in Terminal, switched to Chrome, and then decided to quit Chrome, Terminal becomes the active context. Unfortunately, if Terminal happened to be in a different space at the time, OS X swaps to that space for me.

This effect is pretty jarring every time it happens, and it really gets in the way if, say, Chrome was merely restarting. In that case not only do I get sent to a completely different space, but Chrome then opens itself up in that space where I don't want it.

The only question I could find similar to my problem was:
How can I stop spaces from switching automatically?

It suggests to go under System Preferences -> (Spaces / Mission Control), and uncheck When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application.

While this technically solves my problem, I'm now unable to swap to an open application by simply clicking its icon in the Dock. I can live with this if I have to, but I'd rather have a real solution that doesn't require me to sacrifice quick app-switching.

Ideally I'd like it to switch context to the most-recently used application that's currently open in the existing space. If none exist, default to the Finder.


texts: How can I config an email account in Apple Mail with my own domain?

texts:
I am using outlook.com for my own email "mydomain.info" but I can not add an account in Apple Mail. I have searched in Ask Different for similar questions. I got this:
Personal domain email using Outlook.com on Apple Mail

I have exact the same problem but the accepted answer doesn't work for me. My domain is "domain.info". I never configured an account successfully in Apple Mail from Maverick to Yosemite and now El Capitan.


texts: How Can I Block Downloading when WiFi Not Present?

texts: My children carry my wife's phone while they are out (and away from our wifi at home) and before you know it, BOOM my data plan is used up, this month in 6 days into the cycle!  How can I set her iPhone 5c so that it will not allow data usage when not connected to wifi?  Even if there was a way to password protect so that data could not be used unless a password is entered would help. There already is a password for the phone.  But the kids know it and use data.  Any help will be appreciated.


texts:
Is it possible to set up an auto-reply to an incoming text or iMessage, either on my iPhone (or the connected Message app on my Mac)?

Ideally I'd like to customize this depending upon the sender.


texts: iCloud Keychain sync: How to determine current sync status or force a sync (without removing and adding)?

texts:
Short version:

Is there a command-line or GUI method of determining when the local copy of the iCloud keychain has been syncronized (at least on a Mac) or, short of deleting the keychain and re-adding it, force it to sync with the iCloud copy?

More details:

I'm currently running iOS 12 on multiple devices macOS High Sierra on my MacBook. While performing some cleanup, including deleting items via  Settings → Passwords & Accounts → Website and App Passwords on iOS, I observed that the changes did not appear to be syncing back to the Mac. To be clear, changes made in the normal method (i.e., organically through Safari) also are not making it back.

Note this is on a Mac where the user had only been recently created (so there should be no corruption). The Mac had full network connectivity.

I know my changes are going to iCloud because nearly all my iOS devices are synchronized nearly instantly.

Again, I know I can work around by deleting the Keychain, and re-adding it, but this is not a real solution.

Does Apple even document how the process should work?


texts: Core 2 Duo Macbook OS 10.6.8 to OS 10.7.5

texts:
I am running 10.6.8, on a  2.1 13" white-2008 Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook
Am I able to upgrade to OS X 10.7.5 "Lion & is it free or $20


texts: How to fix Safari does not open a new tab behind the current tab?

texts:
I frequently browse the web using Safari. Sometimes, clicking a link while holding command will not open the link in a new tab behind the current tab.
How do I fix this?


texts: Add a new user with a specific uid and gid

texts:
We have a mixed mac and linux environment at work, to make life easy we use the same uid, gid for each user both on the mac and linux side (I believe this is a standard practice).

The problem is, when you add a new user on a mac, there is no way to set the uid and gid "while" you are creating it, so you need to add the user then set the uid/gid and then go and execute a few find ... -exec ...{} ... commands to change the owner and permissions on the home directory for the user that you already made,

Is there a better solution for this?


texts: Cannot copy and paste in Chrome with macOS Mojave

texts:
I just upgraded to macOS Mojave and noticed something weird. When using Google Chrome, I cannot copy and paste with keyboard shortcuts. I thought maybe the keyboard was broken, but it works in other apps. I can copy and paste using the Edit menu or by right-clicking, so the contents are definitely getting copied.

Chrome is up to date. I assume if this was a widespread issue, they would've fixed it by now.

Any idea of how to fix this or what might be happening?


texts: How to tag files (with Finder tags) using parts of a file name?

texts: I want to use parts of a file name to add specific Finder tags to a file. How can I do that, are there any scripts or applications available to automate this on OS X Mavericks? The only solution I can think of right now is Hazel, but this would be limited by the rule character of this application (choosing tags manually).


texts: "iPad Not Charging" Notification is annoying - Mavericks

texts:
I get this really damn annoying banner every time I plug in my iPad and sometimes when I build and go in Xcode it loses connection with the iPad for a second and reconnects straight away.

Anyone know how to get rid of this notification? I know my iPad won't charge on this Mac Pro, it predates the iPad so it has less power going through the USB ports.


texts: How do I know if my mac's Terminal has been hacked?

texts:
I was using Terminal just now and realized that I was seeing something different on the screen than I have in the past. I can't remember what it used to be, but I know for a FACT that I have never seen "integrativeasheville:~" in Terminal. What is going on?

Last login: Thu Aug  7 23:25:09 on ttys000
integrativeasheville:~ pbishop$ pwd
/Users/pbishop
integrativeasheville:~ pbishop$ whoami
pbishop
integrativeasheville:~ pbishop$ hostname
integrativeasheville.us8.list


texts: How to trim .mov without losing quality?

texts:
When a video file (.mov recorded on iPhone) of resolution 1080x1920 is trimmed in QuickTime and saved as 1080p, the saved video resolution is 607x1024.

Is there a way to trim video and keep the original video resolution?

p.s. QuickTime Version 10.1 (501.22) on Lion


texts: How to move text up/down in Notes using keyboard shortcut?

texts: I want to move text up/down in Notes via the keyboard. I know it is possible in xcode with ⌘ + ⌥ + [ or ⌘ + ⌥ + ]. But it doesn't work in Notes. Any ideas?


texts: How can I change the desktop wallpaper for a restricted, parental controlled account?

texts:
We have an iMac with several accounts (two admins, one normal and one parental controlled).

My son's account (the parental controlled) will not let me change the desktop wallpaper!  Seriously?  I even told it to allow him to run system preferences (once) and even though I chose another wallpaper image, it won't work.

SURELY there is a way to change the simple desktop wallpaper for a managed account without opening the terminal?

Thanks for any tips.


texts: iCloudHelper spams system.log about accepting TOS

texts:
I am seeing my system.log on my mac being flooded by iCloud Helper error messages dealing with the need to accept a TOS agreement. Problem is, the Apple ID that is listed in the message is not one of my current IDs but rather an 9 digit integer.

I have already logged into my two Apple ID accounts on iCloud and they are fine. Is there someplace I can look on disk for this? Everything seems to be working okay; I just want to eliminate the spam from a very overloaded Mavericks system.log.

Here is the log snippet with the integer replaced with XXXXX

  Nov 4 00:14:56 himeko com.apple.iCloudHelper[5272]: AOSKit ERROR: Setup request failed, appleID=XXXXXXXXX, url=https://setup.icloud.com/setup/get_account_settings, requestHeaders= { "Accept-Language" = "en-us"; Authorization = "Basic ..."; "X-APNS-Token" = 5aa69ef2a363d57292517edb985201b3e6ca340c04385511709c4a8be22180ea; "X-Aos-Accept-Tos" = false; "X-Mme-Client-Info" = " "; "X-Mme-Country" = US; "X-Mme-Timezone" = PST; }, error=Error Domain=AOSErrorDomain Code=5003 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (AOSErrorDomain error 5003.)" UserInfo=0x7f99e9d3dc30 {HttpStatusCode=409, DialogInfo={ AlternateButtonLabel = ""; AlternateButtonLink = ""; Body = "MOBILEME_TERMS_OF_SERVICE_UPDATE"; DefaultButtonLabel = "mme.setupservice.SetupServiceJS.OK"; DefaultButtonLink = ""; DialogType = TOSDialog; ErrorID = "MOBILEME_TERMS_OF_SERVICE_UPDATE"; Header = ""; HelpLink = ""; description = "This account needs to accept the ToS"; localizedError = "MOBILEME_TERMS_OF_SERVICE_UPDATE"; protocolVersion = 2; }}, httpStatusCode=409, responseHeaders= { "Cache-Control" = "no-cache, no-store, private"; "Content-Encoding" = gzip; "Content-Length" = 404; "Content-Type" = "application/xml; charset=UTF-8"; Date = "Mon, 04 Nov 2013 08:14:55 GMT"; : },


texts: VoIP App for iPhone (universal, for standard SIP protocol)

texts:
Is there a VoIP app for iPhone which doesn't need to be open to receive calls and is continuously on? I'm after something similar to the Skype app. I've tried Zoiper and Bria but neither have this feature.

The app should support the standard SIP protocol and allow connecting to any VoIP/SIP provider.


texts:
I teach new media classes at a small liberal arts and sciences university. For the past several years, I have been running an Ubuntu server on an old desktop PC in my office. At the beginning of each semester, I create an account on the web server for each student. They learn how to use FTP to upload their digital projects, and some students experiment with basic UNIX command line options. The server recently died, and I'd love to swap in my old Macbook as the new server.

I have spent the better part of a day trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 on a late-2011 MBP. Unfortunately, the dual graphics card configuration causes real problems for the Ubuntu installer. I've worked through multiple installation guides, and cannot manage to boot to the Ubuntu OS without manually editing the grub every single time.

Is it possible to accomplish my objectives while sticking with Yosemite on the MBP? Specifically, this is what I need to be able to do:

SSH into the MBP server from my other computer in order to create new user accounts.
Allow students to connect to their FTP folders via SFTP. Over the course of a typical year, there would be probably be around 30 new user accounts created.

Really... That's about all I need to do. I don't need a fancy graphical interface. I just want to telnet/FTP into the server and occasionally patch it to receive the latest security updates.

I know that Macs have some sort of UNIX terminal under the shell. It would be so cool if I could just telnet/SSH to reach the machine from my desktop computer. Then, I could use basic UNIX commands to create user accounts.


texts: Upgrade iPhone 4G from iOS 4.1 to any iOS

texts:
Is there any possibility for me to upgrade to any iOS on my iPhone 4G from iOS 4.1?

Mine is still a nice stable phone, but I can't download any apps. It is jailbroken, unlocked and I have saved the SHSH blobs if that would help.

I have tried updating for a long time, but it did not work because the Apple signing has ceased by the time I try.


texts: ipod classic is not listed under source list in iTune after restore

texts:
After connect to usb, winXP can open itunes but there is no device on left bar.

I tried re-install iTunes. Reboot iPod, disable anti-virus daemon etc etc, still no go.

Anything else I can do?


texts: How do you update the default version of Nano on MacOS X without using the homebrew package manager?

texts:
I did do some research to check for installation methods but I primarily came across the homebrew method, and I didn't actually see any information about a binary download for Mac. The binary on the nano website is only for Linux.

However, I want to update the version of the nano that is bundled with my Mac, located in the /usr/bin folder. Is it safe to directly paste the Linux nano binary into the aforementioned folder?

If my lack of knowledge is showing through my summary of the information please let me know.


texts: Light-weight system monitor tool/app for OSX, Conky alternatives

texts:
On common UNIX-like computer operating systems there was extremely flexible/customizeable/lightweight tool for System Stats monitoring, called Conky. I'd like to find alternative system monitoring tool for operating system stats in OS X, preferable with the same set of features or more, e.g.:

OS stats monitoring (CPU usage, mem usage, network monitoring, disk usage, "top" like process stats, uname, uptime, etc);
support of compact representation in system tray (menu bar), or/end desktop-widget view;
lightweight;
highly customizable, support of user configuration (alike in conky-app: display information either as text, or using simple progress bars and graph widgets, with different fonts and colours);

What options for application/tools exist for OS X?

I searched for the other topics, and found, that answers/questions are not well organized, some of them are really specialized, lots of duplicates, etc. Let's be more specific.

Rules to structure the answer

One app per answer.
Use this format for the first two lines of your answer:

  ## [app name](link to website)

  ### [App Store](link to AppStore) (price)

Check for duplicates before adding new answers.
If you find a duplicate, vote it down and encourage its poster to up-vote the original entry instead (and remove the duplicate).
Include short description (preferably not marketing text) about what this system monitor does:

which OS stats (uname, uptime, CPU usage, mem usage, disk usage, "top" like process stats, and network monitoring, just to name a few);
what are configuration options, how flexible they are;
can it be shown nicely/compact in system tray (menu bar);
can it display information either as text, or using simple progress bars and graph widgets, with different fonts and colours;
provide one-two screenshots, if possible (with permanent link)
unique features;
is it lightweight or monstrous;
etc.


texts: Storing data on a external drive used for backup

texts:
Is it safe to store data on HDD which I selected to use as a backup device in time machine? Or should I add another partition for that?

I do not know how does time machine behave when there is not enough space. Is it going to delete whatever it sees or just content from Backups.backupd folder.


texts: Sierra stuck at login screen - password doesn't work

texts:
This has happened to me twice in the past week.  I put my MacBook Pro to sleep while my user account is logged in.  When I return, I enter the correct password and it shakes, as if the password were wrong.  I try several times, and get nowhere.  So I force reboot, and then I am able to login again.  Here are some relevant lines from the log right after the reboot.  The opendirectory lines are repeated hundreds of times.

loginwindow: -[LWBuiltInScreenLockAuthLion verifyPassword] | ERROR | Verify password called with PAM auth set to YES, but pam handle == nil
opendirectoryd: Client: <private>, UID: 0, EUID: 501, GID: 20, EGID: 20
opendirectoryd: queuing request to connection - '<private>'
loginwindow: (libpam.2.dylib) in od_record_create(): failed: 13
loginwindow: (libpam.2.dylib) in od_record_create_cstring(): failed: 13
loginwindow: (libpam.2.dylib) in pam_sm_authenticate(): OpenDirectory - Unable to get user record.

This is running Sierra 10.12.6.  Filevault is disabled.  I also notice after the reboot, Spotlight is hogging CPU for several minutes, like it's rebuilding an index, but that might be a red herring, just caused by the reboot.


texts: How to reclaim deleted MacOS partition or Container

texts:
So a little of background and I have doing research many page but have not found the solution yet.

I tried out Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows 10 on my MacBook. Then I accidentally deleted the MacOS Partition (350GB) after booting in Windows 10.
After that I could not boot into the MacOS. I boot to Internet Recovery and reinstall the new Mac OS in another partition (150GB). (I did not have any Time Machine saving on the old OS)

Here is my Disk Utility screenshots.

You can see that 350GB partition is nowhere to be found.
I have tried many tools (Disk Drill, DiskTest, Hetman, Recoverit, ...) to recover the deleted Partition or data from the deleted partition but the only data showed up was system data like "Apple manual PDFs" or "system mp3 sound".
I do think the old OS data is still there after research on many forums but have no luck so far.
Please help if anyone have got into this problem and found the solution. I really don't want to lose those data.
Here is the screenshot of terminal after run "diskutil list"


texts: How to use Notification Center widgets on Desktop?

texts:
Many times when I am working, I reference stuff from Notification center, (calculator, stocks, calendar, 3rd party, etc.). But as soon as I click on anything outside of notification center, Notification Center disappears. Is there anyway to get the widgets on the Desktop. Even better would be a window where I could movie it around.

Specs:

macOS High Sierra


texts:
I have an email that I keep moving to trash and my phone tells me after I've moved it some hours later it's unable to move the message.

How can I get rid of this email?


texts:
I'm looking for web service or an app (or whatever) for iphone 5 for bookmarking urls from google chrome or safari browser. I don't want to use bookmarks integrated into these browsers.

Does anybody know something simple and easy to use service / app with web frontend where i can work with these bookmarks? E.g. bookmarking via e-mail message is probably the simplest way for me.


texts: mail - pop account crashes mail when it checks

texts:
I'm using osx mail with a pop account (need for my workflow).

Issue:

when mail opens and checks the a specific pop account mail crashes.  It's only this specific account. Other pop accounts work.

Troubleshooting: that didn't work

I have deleted and re-added the account. Which resolved the issue but after a few months the issue occurred again then i have to redownload all my messages again and sort through them to get back to where I was which is time consuming.
~/Library/Mail/V6/MailData removed "Envelope Index" to allow the reimport to occur again. issue still occurs
Talked to the mail provider and everything checks out fine with the account
have thunderbird configured but this issue doesn't occur on thunderbird (suspect osx mail client)

Question

It seems like


texts: Winebottler's IE 7 looks different to my PC's IE 7

texts:
I've been testing my new site on my PC's IE 7 (actually IE 8 in 'IE 7 mode'), and yesterday I installed WineBottler's 'IE 7'.

Testing across both, WInebottler's IE 7 looks significantly older, and significantly worse.

Do you know why this is and how I might be able to fix it?

Related question, if I decide Winebottler isn't working and I'd like to go with Parallels or VirtualBox, do I need to shell out the $200+ for Windows as well?


texts: Sandvox: Only reachable within local network

texts:
I have several Mac Minis using several OS (10.7.2-Intel Core 2 Duo, 10.8.5-Intel Core i5, 10.5.8-Power PC, 10.9.5-Intel Core i5, 10.6.8-Intel Core 2 Duo). I am using serving pages from all and built the sites using Sandvox. Until a couple of weeks ago everything was running fine. Also using DynDNS. Recently i modified some info on several and now Sandvox replies:

Only reachable within local network

Every pertinent port in the router is open… internally the page is webserved…

help!

thank you for your time and knowledge


texts:
I'm experiencing a very weird network issue on my newish (2014) macbook pro. I've noticed it the last few weeks, but it could have been around longer, perhaps dating back to the Yosemite upgrade. I'm only getting to look at it now.

Mostly macbook works fine, but every now and again it stops talking to the internet. It seems to happen every 15-20 minutes, for a duration ranging from 30 seconds up to 5 minutes. It's mainly an issue for Skype, where I experience occasional disconnections.

I have run ping youtube.com and it reports Request timeout for <ip-address> at times corresponding to my outages. Note that it does not say No route to host.

I have also run ping against my router IP-address and this always works without fault. thus issues on wireless interface can be ruled out.

I have run ping on my actual router too, against the youtube IP-adress, and this reports no fault. this rules out actual service-provider network issues.

I have run ping from my iPhone, and this reports no problems so the issue is almost certainly something to do with macbook, rather than wifi devices in general.

Apple's wireless diagnostics utilities do detect the outages, but provide no solutions. The tools it provides also show no wireless congestion issues, and no problems with signal.

I've tried a whole slew of fixes:

disabling bluetooth
changing from 802.11g to 802.11n between 2.4GHz and 5 GHz and changing channels.
setting IPv6 to link-only
disabling handoff

I'm going to have a go at the PRAM reset thing if the issue becomes chronic again, and I really don't think I should have to resort to an O/S reinstall.

I would like to understand though, even theoretically what is going on here. It's driving me bananas!


texts: Does Behavior of non-ASCII filenames change?

texts:
I have some similar music libraries which I would like to remove duplicates on (which are contained in a Disc Volume I'm loading wirelessly from a QNAP server). I know there are applications which can achieve this (iTunes may even be able to handle the job) and may end up going that route.

At the moment experimenting with a Python script. Many of the files are named with non-ASCII characters and I'm noticing some odd behavior, illustrated below:

mikes-mbp-2:Multimedia mikekilmer$ ls -l Babel7/ | grep Šaban
ls: Šaban Bajramović: No such file or directory
-rwxrwxrwx  1 mikekilmer  staff     0 May  7 00:48 Šaban Bvić
mikes-mbp-2:Multimedia mikekilmer$ ls Babel7/ | grep Šaban
Šaban Bajramović
Šaban Bvić

I know there's a CD by an artist named Šaban Bajramovic. Sometimes it's visible in the finder and sometimes not, and it comes up in ls, but not ls -l!

It's not just the filename because I can make a text file with the same name and it seems to behave normally:

mikes-mbp-2:Multimedia mikekilmer$ touch Šaban\ Btwo
mikes-mbp-2:Multimedia mikekilmer$ vim Šaban\ Btwo
mikes-mbp-2:Babel7 mikekilmer$ ls -l | grep Šaban
ls: Šaban Bajramović: No such file or directory
-rwxrwxrwx  1 mikekilmer  staff     0 May  7 00:48 Šaban Btwo

Then I thought, maybe it's just one of the non-ASCII characters and tried creating a new file including BOTH non-ASCII characters and got THIS:

mikes-mbp-2:Babel7 mikekilmer$ mv Šaban\ Btwo Šaban\ Bvić
mikes-mbp-2:Babel7 mikekilmer$ ls -l | grep Šaban
drwxrwxrwx  1 mikekilmer  staff   264 Apr 22 23:40 Šaban Bajramović
-rwxrwxrwx  1 mikekilmer  staff     0 May  7 00:48 Šaban Bvić

There's also a file with a non-ascii character behaving similarly:

mikes-mbp-2:Multimedia mikekilmer$ ls -l Babel7/Switzerland_/Morrow\ 78\ Collection_/ | grep Strömpf
ls: Drei Lederne Strömpf_.mp3: No such file or directory
mikes-mbp-2:Multimedia mikekilmer$ ls Babel7/Switzerland_/Morrow\ 78\ Collection_/ | grep Strömpf
Drei Lederne Strömpf_.mp3

In he case of Drei Lederne Strömpf_.mp3, it is visible in the finder.

Based on python code, I'm fairly certain the OS is using utf-8 encoding.

I'm currently downloading the Šaban Bajramović directory to a local drive to see if it behaves any differently.

Insights hoped for.


texts: Does anyone know of a Safari mechanism (extension in Safari 5, perhaps), that will allow a person to send the current URL via instant message? Ideally, it would pop up a list of contacts.


texts: Is there a way to move files to multiple folders in single Folder Action?

texts:
I'm trying to set a Folder Action that will move all of the files that are in my downloads folder into their appropriate folders so that I don't have to do them manually. (movies to movie folder, music to music folder etc...)

Is there a way I can do this in a Folder Action without having to create separate Folder Action script for each type of file?


texts: How to setup Gmail SMTP server for OSX Mail with 2-step-verification and App-specific password?

texts:
Haven't been able to solve this problem with the threads such as here.
My Gmail stops always working after a while, perhaps after accessing it in different WIFI network or something like this -- it is really driving crazy thing. The Gmail account uses 2-step-verification and app-specific password. I cannot understand this SMTP thing.
How to configure Gmail with App-specific password and 2-step-verification to OSX Mail?
Helper question

how to add the app-specific password to keychain?

app-specific password used in the Internect Access list?

Description and issues


texts:
My Macbook pro is connected to my router over the AirPort. The IP address it gets changes every few hours. Is there a way on the mac to request the same address.

I do not have access to the router to configure it.


texts: A program converting PDFs to flipbooks in standalone format readable on iOS wholly offline?

texts:
This question is related to one I asked on Software Recs.
Is there a program that converts a PDF to an e-flipbook in the form of an file that a user can download from a website, save on her iOS tablet, and then click on to open so that she can flip through the document, two pages visible at a time, wholly offline?
None of the following programs seem to allow this, although several are able to do it for Windows or macOS, saving the flipbook in .exe or .app format.

1stFlip Flipbook Creator
Flip Book Maker for PDF
Flip PDF
PDF to Flipbook
Pub HTML5
FlippingBook Publisher
3D PageFlip
Flip Creator

(I have asked this question elsewhere for Android.)


texts: Possible to release an update on iTunes Connect only to certain countries?

texts: Is it possible to release an update to an iOS app on iTunes Connect only to certain countries, while the app has been available worldwide? The intention is to release the new app gradually on a country per country basis.


texts: Trouble with SSD/HDD in Macbook Pro Mid 2009

texts:
When my original HDD crashed I wanted to change it and choose a Samsung HDD (I don't not the exact model anymore). The problem with this one was that the system often hanged for several seconds until it worked again for a short time. Often the colored spinning wheel appeared and I had to wait. The MacBook Pro was unusable with this.

Then I bought a Hitachi HDD from my colleague that was built in another MacBook an it worked perfectly. There were no problems.

A week ago I decided to put in the Crucial M4 SSD with 128 GB. The same problem as with the Samsung HDD. I've cloned my old HDD, reinstalled the system, but nothing helped. Even the re-installation took me several hours, not as usual. I've also upgraded the Crucial HDD to the newest firmware without any success.

Why does this happens or does somebody have any idea to get the SSD working?
Was it just coincidence that the Hitachi HDD worked and the other two didn't?


texts: importing .vpl files (vpn tunnels) on mac

texts: Is there any way I can import a .vpl file? This is the only way of connecting I have and for now I can only do it on Windows (with FortiClient 4.x.x) because 5 doesn't support importing .vpl anymore.


texts: Disk Utility stuck around 50% when formatting SSD

texts:
I bought a SSD drive for my early MacbookPro 2011, since my old HDD was very slow and with crazy IO activity when idle.

I started the Internet Recovery Mode and opened the Disk Utility to format the SSD as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) so that I could install MacOSX.

However the formatting process is stuck at around 50% and the estimated time just goes up. It is on a step where the drive name and information is gone: completely disappeared from Disk Utility.
The step is now called Partitioning.

I don't know if I should interrupt the process by closing the utility. It warns me that the drive may be unusable if I do so.

What should I do? It has been already more than 1 hour.


texts: Can I Delete My save game for something like PlunderNauts?

texts:
I want to start over on PlunderNauts because I bought something with in game money that really wasted my antimatter. I want a way to revert the purchase or reset game. I would much prefer reset game.

P.S I'm not a complete noob when it comes to technology.


texts:
I am trying to format my USB flash in ExFAT format to make it work on both Mac and Win devices. But I am unable to format my USB flash because I am getting an error when trying to format it via diskutil.

1) Check our external device in disks list:

2) Format:

According to the internet answers, I have tried to boot in safe mode and format USB flash then - but also got 'could not open device' error.

Can somebody help me with this?

P.S. Result of execution command from the question comment:


texts: Any way to tell apart macOS versions by the login screen or lock screen?

texts:
Is there any way to tell apart macOS versions by quick or close inspection of the login screen or lock screen?

Knowing this would speed up macOS identification if (for example, only High Sierra shows the day of the week top right or the change user icon is rendered differently)

Are there any major / minor builds of macOS that have telltale clues as to what OS is running looking at the lock screens of macOS?


texts: Using Firefox on MacOS. I want to recover an HTML file I might still have on the browser somewhere, because I deleted it by mistake on the server. Is there a way to do that? I know the exact url, and it is an HTTPS to a simple HTML file. Thank you.


texts:
iTunes pops up a message and ask to sync iPad 2 before upgrade iOS to 4.3.3 due to there're purchased apps. After sync'ing, I only saw purchased apps in iTunes, not those free ones.

Does this mean, if I don't sync iPad 2 before upgrade, only purchased apps will be removed from my iPad 2?


texts: How specific/secure/selective is Touch ID?

texts:
My new Macbook Pro has Touch ID, and I've trained it on one of my fingers so I can use it to unlock my machine, which is quite fun. I've been wondering, though, how secure it is really.

To be clear, since I must have already logged in using my password, and you have to be physically present before you can try using Touch ID, Apple doesn't have to guarantee that it will only respond to my finger; it just has to be very unlikely to respond to someone else's finger. That's why, from time to time, the OS will require that my full password be typed in. It's similar to ATM card PIN numbers; four digits makes it difficult enough for a card thief to guess that it's a good-enough confirmation measure, although it would NOT be good enough if the card weren't required.

So, here's my specific question: how likely is it that a random, non-trained finger would be recognized as matching my trained one? Are we talking a 1 in 1000 chance, 1 in 10000, or even less likely? (I doubt I'd get a clear answer from Apple were I to ask them...)


texts: Quickly switch sound output from HDMI to Headphone jack OS X 10.10.5

texts:
How do you quickly change the output from the HDMI to aux/headphone jack in OS X 10.10.5?
Currently I change it this way.
System Preferences -> Sound -> Output
In windows it default switches to the aux/headphone jack when you plug in headphones.
Is there a way to accomplish this in OS X 10.10.5?
Without Apple Script.


texts:
I recently went to the apple store and got a replacement iphone 5 and with the new one I have decided to start fresh considering all the data I need is on icloud.

All my photos are on photo stream and I can see them all on my Mac in iPhoto but on my phone it has only synced a recent bunch of photos and not all of them.

Is there a way to sync all of the photos that are on photo stream onto my phone without transferring the photos through iTunes?

Thanks!


texts: How can I backup, sort, and listen to all of my iPhone Voice Message on my MacBook?

texts:
I have many recordings of birds as Voice Memos on my iPhone 6 with iOS 12.4.5 and I am trying to synch to my new MacBook macOS 10.15.6 using iTunes (which is now called Music?)
If I connect my iPhone to my new laptop then click the iPhone icon in Music it shows me an alphabetical list of about half or less of the Voice Memos that are on my phone. The list is alphabetical so I can't check the most recent recording date.
I have synched, but when I disconnect my phone the list disappears and I can not find Voice Memos on my laptop anywhere.
If I look on my hard drive under Music I don't see anything useful.
Question: How can I synch or backup, sort, and listen to all of my iPhone Voice Message on my MacBook?


texts:
My iPhone 4 data usage suddenly spiked. From using 30-40% of my monthly allowance in the average month (3-400Mb out of a allowed 1Gb), recently I used 175% (1.75Gb) in a single day.

I have to assume that they numbers from my carrier are more or less correct. The figure shown in Settings > General > Usage more or less tallies with their report.

There are a few apps (DataMon, etc.) which will monitor usage as a whole, but I'd like an app which can break down my usage by which app is consuming the data. (Ideally 3G vs Wifi too.)

Does anything like this exist - or can it even exist? My iOS coding skillz are not strong, and I can't think how I could do this, but that certainly does not mean that no-one else can.

NB. I'm not too concerned about challenging the figure, I trust it to be reasonably correct based on past performance, but I'd quite like to be able to monitor the apps and decommission those which seem to be using a disproportionate amount.


texts: Apple Updater (Windows) Won't Download Updates?

texts:
I have an update for iTunes and iCloud yet neither will download. It downloads less than a megabyte but hangs up. My internet connection is fine and very fast. What is going on?

Note: I am on Windows 8.1 64bit.


texts: How to scan a Mac for rootkits and other stealthy security hazards

texts:
I'm looking at buying a second-hand Mac, probably one that does not include an OS installation disk.  How can I scan it to make sure that it has not had security threats installed on it?  Is there a CD or DVD image I can boot it up with to perform this scan offline?

Edit: prospective machine would be a 2011- or 2012-vintage MacBook Pro.

Also note that I don't have reliable access to high-speed internet, so solutions that involve downloading 5GB over the Internet are not ideal.  For others, though, this guide to creating a bootable Mavericks install medium may be helpful.


texts: iOS: Firefox - How can I remove an “Available Device” listed in the “Send Tab” extension if it is not listed on accounts.firefox.com?

texts:
I installed Firefox on my iOS device and logged into my Firefox (Sync) account. This gives me a new "Send Tab" extension that I can use in Safari to send an opened web page to my Firefox desktop installations.

Unfortunately I also have an unkown/old/outdated device listed in "Available Devices". Sending the tab to that device does nothing. So I want to remove it, as it has a very similar name to my real Firefox Desktop installation.

I already tried removing it via "Devices & apps" on accounts.firefox.com, but it is not listed there - only my expected devices show up there.

For now I fixed it by adding "(real!)" to my real Firefox Desktop device name which makes me not use the wrong one any more, but of course is only an ugly workaround.

How can I remove this device from the list?


texts: Why can't I add more options to the search in Finder?

texts:
I used to be able to click on the + next to save. After I upgraded to Yosemite, the + now became a - and I can't add exact match anymore. Any idea?

Thanks


texts: How to recover a deleted folder from Time Machine back-up disk?

texts: I wanted to clean my external disk that I use to back up my mac, but I didn't do it right... I deleted the folder 'Mac's Name' with my back ups, but the weird thing is that there is no extra free space on my external disk. So I learned that you have to delete your back-up within the Time Machine Interface. But I can't recover this folder from the trash can because of this message: "The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified."


texts: Linking selected contacts cards in macOS Big Sur 11.2 not permanently any more

texts:
In the macOS contacts app I got 2 accounts embedded, one is my iCloud, the other one my Google Account. Both contact accounts have partially the same contact persons in common.
In the contacts app you can link selected contact cards to one card. That’s fine, e.g. for showing only one calendar entry for someone’s birthday.
The problem: Every time I link two cards, after a couple of minutes the contact app shows the two single contacts again. The contacts are not permanently linked.
Any solutions?


texts: How to organise overflowing config files and folders in the home directory and beyond!

texts:
The Context:

I'm a long-time macOS user who has spent many years dabbling here and there with the *nix side of Apple life since the first iteration of OS X (10.0) originally shipped.

Recently, I find myself compelled to dig a little deeper after deciding to embark on a journey of self education in all things scripting/programming/system administration. Thankfully there exist fantastic tools such as Homebrew, amongst others, to make the management of this macOS shadow-land far more straightforward, but sometimes it's neccessary to work outside of these self-contained ecosystems.

The Core Problem:

I find myself gathering a large quantity of configuration-related files and folders in my home directory. This unwiedly & miscellaneous collection seems sub-optimal and I'm wondering if the more experienced have some "best practice" guidance for this situation - maybe even a decicated utility or two?
I'm keenly aware that the ecosystem of *nix software is extremely sensitive to directory/path structure; and minor changes can have major side effects that aren't immediately obvious,resulting in increasingly time-costly troubleshooting and conflict-resolution in the future - particularly when the problem at hand isn't recent and "fresh in the mind".

Any suggestions/pointers/links or path/environment variables welcome - thanks!


texts: Do MP3's encoded by iTunes contain my email address, and how can I remove it?

texts:
I heard that when you rip an Audio CD to MP3 with iTunes it hides your email address (or some other identifying information) in the MP3. Is this true?

Is there any way to remove this identifying information?


texts:
I restored from a Time Machine backup onto a new HDD, this was using a disc with OS X Lion

Upon boot, in verbose mode, the text hangs after initpool: offset = 0x08000000 size = 0x0800000.

I would be inclined to point to it being a RAM problem, but when another drive is hooked up, it goes on to list the partitions and then hangs. So it's most likely whatever sequence that happens right after the initpool function which is hanging

Why can't I get it to boot up? Also, I see something about the program Little Snitch starting, in case a third party program might be known to cause trouble.


texts: Was my AT&T-approved iPhone 4 unlock successful?

texts:
I called AT&T and asked them to unlock my iPhone 4 for international travel. They agreed. The support agent created a case, gave me the case identifier, and gave me an expected resolution date of April 18, 2012. Today (April 13, 2012), I received an email with a link to the unlock instructions.

The instructions I received are:

Open iTunes on your Mac or PC and verify that you have internet connectivity.
Connect your iPhone using the dock connector to USB cable that came with your iPhone.
Backup and restore your iPhone using iTunes. For information on backup and restore, please visit http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414.
After restoring, your iPhone will be unlocked. Additional information on unlocking can be found at http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3198.

I completed these steps, however, according to TS3198, I should've seen this message from iTunes: "Unlock Complete. Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked. To set up and sync this iPhone, click Continue." I did not get a separate dialog window (as anticipated) with this message. If the message appeared within the iTunes window, I must have missed it.

TS3198 lists these troubleshooting steps:

Reseat the SIM card: Remove the SIM card in your iPhone and then reinsert it.
Restore your iPhone. Note that the computer you are using to restore the iPhone needs to be connected to the Internet. You can verify the connection by loading the first page of the iTunes Store.
Contact your carrier to verify that the unlock was applied in their system.

I've already completed steps 1 and 2, but still have not seen a message from iTunes stating that the phone is unlocked. After I post this question, I will perform step 3.

I do not have an iPhone 4 sim on another network available to test with my phone, but I need to make sure that this unlocking is complete before I travel to another country.

Is there some persistent indication in the iTunes or iPhone user interface that will tell me whether or not this phone is unlocked?

Sequence of events

April 10, 5pm: I called AT&T and requested unlocking.
April 13, 10am: AT&T emailed me instructions for unlocking.
April 13, 2pm: I completed the steps for unlocking but did not see any confirmation message as expected. I completed steps 1 and 2 of the TS3198 troubleshooting steps.
April 13, 4pm: I called AT&T to request confirmation of unlocking (attempting to complete step 3 of the TS3198 troubleshooting steps). Agent stated I did not complete the necessary steps and would need an unlock code. (below, bmike indicates this advice was incorrect.)
April 13, 6pm: AT&T emailed me instructions for unlocking, which match the instructions I received earlier in the day.


texts: My sister gave me her extra iPad from several years ago and I can’t get into it.  Problem is that she bought it for a dog shelter to use and the guy there had his own ID and password and she had hers. When she got it back from the shelter I deleted her info but cannot use the iPad because his info is in it and he’s long moved away and cannot contact him to have him delete it remotely. Is there any way to be able to use this iPad again?


texts: How to force iOS apps to use global proxy settings

texts: Most stock apps will use the proxy settings, but apps from the App Store rarely use the proxy settings given under Settings > Wifi. I am told that the proxy API must be called explicitly, but is there a way, perhaps a jailbreak app, that will force all connections to go through the proxy? I currently have the option of using either a .PAC config file or typing out the http proxy of my university manually and providing authentication details.


texts: Activation Lock on iPhone 4S randomly appeared (not my username, I am the only owner)

texts:
While listening to Spotify on my old iPhone 4S, the screen changed and showed the Activation Lock screen.  Spotify continued to play while the activation lock was on.  This phone is not set up or connected to any carrier, and I only use it for music and games, so it is only connected to my home WiFi (which is password protected).

The strange thing is that I purchased this phone from AT&T back in 2013, and I have been the only owner of the phone, but it is saying my Apple ID is not the original Apple ID, and will not let me Activate the phone.  What is interesting is that it does seem to be someone with a similar name to mine.

I like having the spare iPhone for listening to music and playing games separate from my current phone.  How do I get my phone back?


texts:
I tried to use grep to match one pattern on the terminal, but n
o any result comes out.

$ grep -R 'networks'
grep: warning: recursive search of stdin

I knew grep on macOS is based on BSD while grep on Ubuntu is based on GNU.

How to make 'grep' work on macOS like in Ubuntu?


texts: Linear and fast mouse speed in OS X Lion. Possible?

texts:
I've got a 27" display and, at present, I need to use the whole mousepad just to get across the screen.

How can i make my mouse (Logitech MX 400) movement linear AND fast? How do i speed up the mouse with NO acceleration?


texts: Dual Monitor Setup with Mac Mini (2014) Screen Blinking

texts:
I have a Mac Mini from Late 2014 (2,6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5, 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3). I want to use two monitors with it - the two Monitors are identical BenQ GW2283. I managed to get both monitors running yesterday evening, but when I woke the system from sleep this morning, the problem was back again.
One Monitor is connected directly via HDMI. The other one is connected via Mini DisplayPort to HDMI. The monitors came with VGA connectors so I bought the HDMI cables and the Mini DisplayPort. As soon as two monitors are connected, the one that was first connected starts flashing, fading to black and shortly showing the system, then fading out again. I made a little video of this happening. The system does detect the second monitor, because I can move my cursor offscreen. The other monitor then prompts "no cable connected". This Problem seems to be related to order. Whatever monitor currently works will start flashing once I plugin the second one. It doesn't seem to matter whether I plugin the DisplayPort or the HDMI first.
I have tried resetting the NVRAM but that didn't have any effect. I hope to get some ideas or maybe even the answer to my problem from someone here, before I rush out and throw money at the problem by buying all sorts of other adapters.


texts: Which iPad app does encrypted note storage?

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I'm wondering whether there's an iPad notes app that either:

doesn't back up to "the cloud", or
backs up an encrypted version of the notes such that the notes are unreadable in the cloud (i.e., a Dropbox employee couldn't read the notes).

Is anyone familiar with an app that allows for encrypted notes?


texts:
I think I have exactly the problem described here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250476270?answerId=250909160022#250909160022 - Numbers apparently drawing the spreadsheet on top of itself, offset, for no obvious reason. Presumably I hit the wrong shortcut key and didn't notice at the time.

I assume the given answer will solve my problem... but I don't understand what it's telling me to do, and I don't seem to be able to add a comment to the thread. What it suggests doing is as follows:

Select both, then open the format inspector, choose Table and check the Table Names checkbox.
Both tables should have the same name. The duplicate will have " - 1" added to the end.
Afte checking that any recent editing has been done in the origina (and repeating it there if that is not the case)l, delete the duplicate.

This isn't at all clear to me.
How do I "select both"?
I have the format inspector opened... I think... but there is no Table Names checkbox. (Maybe this is due to my failure to "select both"?)
How do I "delete the duplicate"?
(OS 10.14.6, Numbers 10.1 (6913))


texts: Why doesn't El Capitan Spotlight search in custom dictionary?

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Since I upgraded to El Capitan, Spotlight has refused to look up for definitions in my custom dictionary (built by me). Instead, it sticks itself with Apple's default English-English dictionary.

Note that the custom dictionary:

is already at the top of the dictionary list;
still works just fine with Dictionary.app and Quick Lookup (three-finger touch).

Does anyone know why and have a solution or workaround to this problem?

Thanks a lot in advance.


texts: iPhone 3GS locked to at&t. How do unlock it?

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I bought an iPhone 3GS, second hand, and I have now found out its on a AT&T network. I live in the UK, I can't get past the "Connect to iTunes" message. Even when I connect to iTunes it says:

  Phone not found. Please try again later.

I can't get into the settings on the phone either. Do I need to unlock the phone from AT&T? If so, how can I do that? If not, how can I get past the errors?


texts:
I got a 185Gb Parallels Virtual Machine which iCloud has uploaded to iCloud Drive and removed off my Mac (thanks apple). When I try to Right Click on the file and select "Download Now" I get a "Not enough space error" although I have over 300Gb of space on my flash drive. If I try to drag the file from my iCloud Drive to an external SSD I get "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -1407)", the same error comes up if I try to move or copy the file to the external SSD (it has over 220Gb of space)

I've even tried to download the file from the iCloud Drive web portal on my Mac and on a PC with a number of different browsers. I get a .Zip file downloaded of around 3-5Gb in size which appears to be corrupt no matter which file I use to open up.

Currently the file sits there on my iCloud Drive with a cloud with an exclamation mark inside it (Sync error)

Any suggestions how to get my file back?

p.s. no I haven't a backup


texts: Process in /System/Library/Frameworks/Accounts.framework/Versions/A/Support/accountsd taking almost all ressources (Catalina - MacOS 10.15.6)

texts:
I have Catalina 10.15.6
There is something running in the background at /System/Library/Frameworks/Accounts.framework/Versions/A/Support/accountsd that takes 50-90% of the CPU and 1Gig of memory. I fear that it's a virus. I saw that there is a similar question there, but there was no feedback. I tried to remove it with
I run malwarebyte: it told me that there is no malware on the machine
override rwxr-xr-x  root/wheel restricted,compressed for accountsd? y rm: accountsd: Operation not permitted
I'm affraid of breaking somethin if I go further
I tried to follow the following points of the comments/answers

I deleted all the account in `system preferences > Internet accounts'

I rebooted 2x the machine in safe mode by holding shift

Despite those steps nothing happened: the fan is still full on an almost all ressources of the CPU taken
in <user>/Library/Keychains, there is the following list:
login.keychain
login.keychain-db
login_renamed_1.keychain-db
metadata.keychain
metadata.keychain-db
metadata.keychain-db.C07BBB57-D5A7-435B-9CAD-1AE65E5FBCC5

Which one should I delete?
What finally solved the problem:
So what finally solved the problem was to reset the NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory) with the command alt+cmd+p+r upon starting
thanks for hints below