texts: Are auto-downloaded malicious .dmg app files a security risk if they are never opened?

texts:
I visited a page to stream a TV show, and upon clicking the search result link got the following pop-up:

I clicked OK, as nothing on Chrome was available, and when I did that, Chrome auto-downloaded a file called FlashPlayer.dmg.

Here is a picture of that file:

I didn't open the .dmg file or click on it at all.  Instead, I immediately went to my downloads folder, deleted the file, and then emptied my trash.

I then went to see my downloads on Chrome; the URL seems to be something like www.makeymcmacface.com/prod/... (which Google indicates belongs to the Mac.Trojan.Genieo.33 type of adware).

My question is this: If I download a malicious .dmg file, but don't click on it to install it, am I safe? Or is there a possibility that by simply visiting a website that auto-installs a .dmg file, I could have compromised my security?


texts: Uploading photos from iPhone to iCloud Photos, using iOS 14 - is it working / what is the status?

texts:
My iPhone has thousands of photos. I'd like to store them in iCloud Photos, to help me migrate to a new iPhone with less storage.
I've set it up, following the section in the iPhone User Guide and the Set up and use iCloud Photos support document.
Looking at my photos in a web browser at icloud.com/photos, it seems my iPhone has only uploaded some of my photos. I can only see about my last 6 months of photos there, but I have many more on my phone.
The documentation I've linked to above is extremely minimal for a complicated feature like this, and doesn't seem to help.
How can I tell the status of the iCloud Photos upload process on my iOS 14 iPhone?


texts:
I have 884 copies of a document  that have to be printed soon. Each document has a QR identity code on each page, so it is not as simple as print 884 copies of a single document. We are using an canon image runner advanced 6255. The problem is that if I print any one of the documents from preview, it prints correctly. I have set the defaults for the printer using print using last setting, and also set the settings for the driver using the cups browser interface.

If I select several in the finder and use cmd p, the top of the QR code gets clipped off. I tried an automator script using three blocks (get finder specific item [folder] -> get folder contents -> print finder items) prints the QR codes correctly, but for some reason all of the ligatures (fi, …, etc) are dropped leaving blank spaces in the document.
I also tried from the command line using lpr. This produces identical results to automator (QR codes are ok, but all ligatures are missing).

Any ideas on a way to print the documents other than opening each one individually and typing cmd p and Enter?

Thanks.


texts: Services submenu disappeared from contextual menu of right click

texts:
I am using OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 at my office. Last week, I was still able to right click files or folders and choose services from the bottom of contextual menu. However, after I started my Mac this morning and reopen the Finder, I am not able to see the services submenu after right click. I can only choose the services without using the columns view and click Finder > Services from the top left.

I typed this command in the Terminial but it did not solve it:

/System/Library/CoreServices/pbs

Is there another other way to make it what it was? Thanks.

Edit:
After rebooting, the problem still exist, but I noticed one thing: the services shows up only on desktop, but not within the finder window.

Edit 2:
In addition to desktop, it also appears in icon view, but not in column & list view (which previously do).

I have also tried quiting/force quiting Automator Runner, ScriptMonitor and some other background processes which was not responding from the Activity Monitor, but still no good.

Edit 3:
After some observation, it might be caused by the Adobe CS5 / Creative Cloud / Finder conflict. I have uninstalled CC which I don't use much (needed to share with other people). Will observe some more time to see if it is completely resolved.


texts: use mdfind to get list of matches with context?

texts:
I want to search a folder of PDFs to find a particular string and get back a list of matches with a little of the surrounding context.

Using:

mdfind -onlyin ~/Dropbox/PDFs 'term' >> ~/Dropbox/searches/term.txt

I can get a list of files that contain a match, but I would like to see a little of the surrounding context so that I can tell a little bit more about the match. Ideally, with the filename prepended.

Something like:

~/Dropbox/PDFs/file1.pdf: here is the term you were searching
~/Dropbox/PDFs/file1.pdf: with term limits
~/Dropbox/PDFs/file2.pdf: the German term for a
~/Dropbox/PDFs/file3.pdf: come up with a term for
etc...


texts: Can't change volume or mute Sony headphones connected to Mac

texts:
I use some Sony headphones on an iMac and they've been working well for around 4 months.

Now, I start up my Mac to go to Safari and listen to some songs. I realize that my headphones are a bit loud. I hit F11 on my Apple keyboard to lower down the audio and for some reason it won't lower! I can hit the mute button and still nothing will happen.


texts: Alignment errors on Fusion Drive caused by differing block sizes?

texts:
I have some alignment errors on my Fusion Drive after? reorder the CoreStorage.

For some weeks ago I got my purchased iMac 27 and made out, that the index order of the SSD and HDD drives are wrong. At index 0 there was the hdd and on index 1 pointed to the SSD. The problem was that the Operations during the work on the mac was very slow.

So I made a new clean install, created a new CoreStorage and reordered the Fusion Drive, so that the SSD is at index 0. Please look what I mean:

diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group
    =========================================================
    Name:         OSX-MacintoshLVG
    Status:       Online
    Size:         1022898851840 B (1.0 TB)
    Free Space:   45056 B (45.1 KB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk1s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     23553724416 B (23.6 GB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    1
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     999345127424 B (999.3 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         None
        |
        +-> Logical Volume
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk2
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          1021994074112 B (1.0 TB)
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS
            LVG Type:              Fusion, Sparse

I wrote after reorder because I'm not sure that was before I create the new CoreStorage.

After made out the alignment errors I checke the block size of the two drives that differs!

HDD:

diskutil info /dev/disk0 | grep "Block Size"
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

SSD:

diskutil info /dev/disk1 | grep "Block Size"
   Device Block Size:        4096 Bytes

I think that's the problem that I've got this errors.

Question 1: Does a method exist to modify the block size of the 512 Bytes drive to 4096 Bytes?

Question 2: Is it possible to lose data caused by the different block sizes (I/O errors)?.

The iMac actually is running without problems, but some of my pdf documents gives me cryptic output if I copy some text from there. I mean if I paste the copied text into another document I got cryptic output.


texts: Can I have different Apple IDs on my iPhone 4S?

texts:
iCloud has an Apple ID:

Settings > iCloud

Messages has an Apple ID:

Settings > Message > Receive At

Store has an Apple ID:

Setting > Store

Do these all have to be the same ID?  If not, which ones can be different?

Or to ask this question a different way...

My wife and I both have a 4S.  Can we share the same ID for iCloud (calendar sync) and Store (app sync) but not for Messages (distinct text identity)?

TIA


texts: I am a developer and I want to access the applications folder through terminal. After typing in cd Applications and then ls. It doesn't show any of the contents inside the folder. I also tried ls -a to confirm wether they are stored as hidden files. But it didn't show them. I want to know a command or method to view the contents of the Application folder through terminal.


texts: Why does iOS think that I'm connecting my 3.5mm to Lightning adapter for the first time?

texts: As of iOS 14.2, when connecting a Lightning adapter to an iOS device for the first time (the 3.5mm to Lightning cable being a good example of this), a dialog appears asking the user to choose whether this device is connecting a pair of headphones; if this option is chosen, iOS will then log volume output levels, saving these to the Health app and displaying notifications if they exceed the recommended levels. Whilst this feature is working as expected, I've noticed that despite using the same 3.5mm to Lightning adapter, when connecting this to the Lightning port iOS will sometimes display this dialog again - almost as if it thinks that this adapter is being used for the first time. Is there any way to stop this dialog from appearing?


texts: Can't save AppleScript file when created by touch

texts:
I'm used to create file using touch before opening them with open. But I came to this following problem :

When I do this with AppleScript files AppleScript Editor is able to open the file but unable to save the file. I get The document "xxx.scpt" could not be saved.

Any idea why ?


texts: How to click a focused button via keyboard on mac?

texts: For example, when I press "tab" to focus a button(to close something etc) and try to click it by press "return", however I can't.


texts: How to prevent machine from renaming itself at start up

texts:
My iMac's name is windowlick. Every time I reboot it, for some reason it detects that the name windowlick is already in use on the network and renames itself with a random suffix, e.g. windowlick (3829) or the like, and it gets a zeroconf/bonjour hostname of windowlick-2.local instead of the usual windowlick.local.

I can manually fix this by going to the Sharing preferences panel, but I'd rather not have to do this, especially since I often do remote access from an external network (via ssh to another machine that gets the incoming port assignment) and if my machine rebooted due to a power failure or a system update I don't like having to guess at the hostname.

My computer gets its IP address via DHCP assignment from the router (a recent Netgear); it also behaved this way on my previous router (an Apple Time Capsule). It has a reserved IP address for its wired Ethernet port, but it connects via both Ethernet and Wi-Fi (which does not have an address reservation). I suspect that something to do with name assignment is doing something weird with the order of operations on the Wi-Fi vs. Ethernet interfaces.

Unfortunately, I cannot simply disable Wi-Fi, as I make use of OS features that require that my Wi-Fi be active (for example, Unlock with Apple Watch).

Is there any way to tell macOS to not be "polite" and rename itself if it sees "another" machine by the same name?

This seems similar to My Mac mini's computer name keeps changing when it resumes from sleep but I don't have the problem when resuming from sleep, it's only after a reboot, and I already have the static IP assignment per the accepted answer on that question. Also, this doesn't happen on my MacBook (which does not have a static assignment).


texts: Unable to backup/upload to iCloud on iPad due to full storage

texts:
I have a supervised iPad that was used to make training videos, the issue is that they have nigh completely filled the device of videos. I am unable to use iTunes to manage it as the device is locked to a single computer which happens to be in a different country, as such sending it back there just to have it sorted is a last case scenario.

The issue is that no matter what type of backup I try and perform, the system is reserving 6GB for itself and the videos taking up the remaining 10GB of the 16GB device, which basically fails every single backup attempt due to insufficient space (Just to confirm I got 50GB limit on iCloud, with 0GB in use). Is there no way to tell the system to re-evaluate what it's keeping reserved because I am pretty sure it's just a bunch of old backup references or temporary files. Also how much space is required on the device to perform this backup?


texts:
In the Apple's Music app on my iPhone, when I press the play button, the music titles begin shuffling through all of the songs and will not stop shuffling.

How do I stop songs from shuffling?


texts: Why does my iPhone 4s notify me when an email is deleted on my PC?

texts: When I delete an email on my PC my iPhone notifies me of a new email. I have looked for a setting to stop this.  Does anyone know of a way to stop this?


texts: I don't receive calls or messages from messenger or Instagram or Skype..etc even though I'm online

texts: I'm using iPhone 6, I have a problem recently, I don't get any calls or messages from messenger or Instagram and the other apps, even though the WiFi is on, and the person who calls, it appears to him that I'm offline, and if they send a message it Will be just sent not delivered, untill I open the app, they can call me, but the other apps Will be offline, so how can I fix that?


texts: .smbdelete files on High Sierra server vs Save in MS Word 2016 on Mojave

texts:
I am working with a Mac mini (Macmini7,1) running High Sierra 10.13.6 with SMB file sharing to a few connected computers. Things have been working fine, but since updating a couple of the client machines to Mojave 10.14, when saving changes to MS Word documents we get a "Grant File Access" dialogue wanting to access a file named .smbdeleteAAAABBBBetc

I gather from various sources such as .smbdelete files accumulating on server share and https://discussions.apple.com/message/30046649#message30046649 that these files are the result of the SMB client software trying to be careful when it deletes a file (basically rather than delete the file, it is first renamed and hidden to perhaps make it easier to deal with multiple processes acting on the file and locking issues and stuff like that)

  Apple introduced this behavior in OS X 10.10 you can find it in the
  source code here:

  http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/smb/smb-759.40.1/kernel/smbfs/smbfs_smb.c

  The comment above the code that does it is:

* We have an open file that they want to delete. Use the NFS silly rename
* trick, but try to do better than NFS. The picking of the name came from the
* NFS code. So we first open the file for deletion. Now come up with a new
* name and rename the file. Make the file hidden if we can. Now lets mark
* it for deletion and close the file. If the rename fails then the whole call
* should fail. If the mark for deletion call fails just set a flag on the
* vnode and delete it when we close.

In our situation, almost every time a MS Word document is saved after a change has been made, this type of dialogue pops up:

Since the .smbdelete file is invisible in the Finder and File Selection dialogues, one cannot select it if you hit the "Select..." putton. Hitting "Cancel" sometimes results in MS Word continuing to edit the properly newly saved file, and sometimes results in MS word editing the .smbdelete file, and sometimes a new File Selection dialogue pops up.

I think that when MS Word saves changes to a file, it first creates a new file with the changes, then "deletes" the original file, then renames the new file with the original file name. The deletion of the original file does this smbdelete rename thing, and somehow the timing of the various renames and deletes and the like get messed up and MS Word gets confused about which file is which and what it should do about it.

Is there any way to fix this so it doesn't happen, or are we stuck copying the files we need to work on to local storage and moving them back when we are done?

In looking for online references to this, I find lots of people complaining about .smbdelete files littering their servers, and some references to troubles when dealing with saving password protected Excel files, but no references to this specific issue. We do not seem to be have experienced this issue with High Sierra client machines.


texts: open new terminal tab in the same directory with the active tab

texts:
In GNOME Terminal of Ubuntu when you open a new tab the new shell will automatically start you in the current working directory of the active tab shell.

E.g. if in the active tab shell I am on ~/myproject and I open a new tab, the new shell will start on ~/myproject too.

As you can guess, this is very convenient when you work deep in the directory hierarchy.

Can I configure the OSX terminal to have this behaviour?

If not, is there any free (cocoa) terminal that does this?


texts: How do I create Keyboard shortcuts for operations in a website on OS X?

texts:
I need someone to help me out in assigning Keyboard shortcuts for a few operations/tabs on a website in Mac. I'm working on a website that plays the audio files. So, I want to create a Keyboard Shortcut for the play button listed on that website so that I can avoid using the mouse as I continuously love to work only with Keyboard.

Eg: Spacebar for Play/pause on Youtube.com


texts: Can one iPhone be registered to multiple Developer accounts?

texts:
I have an Apple iOS Developer account and I registered my iPhones UUID to this account (to create Provisioning Profiles, etc.).

Is it possible to add this iPhones UUID to another iOS Developer account?


texts: iOS 14 default email app inconsistent behaviour

texts:
I changed my default email app in iOS 14.0.1 but it still uses the Apple Mail app in some situations. For example if I tap an email link in Safari it’s using the Apple Mail UI/accounts.
If I tap a link from inside the Stack Exchange app and then tap an email link from inside the in app browser, that uses Gmail. If I open that page in Safari first then it uses Apple Mail. Eg NYT contact us page.
Is this just an oversight / bug on Apple’s part?


texts: When pairing a bluetooth keyboard(-like) device with Yosemite, can the pin number be skipped?

texts:
I ordered one of these Vicro Technilogy Ltd. Bluetooth Mini GamePad (PA-BK11) ’s off of Amazon.

It shows up as “Bluetooth Gamepad” in the Bluetooth system preferences panel, with a keyboard icon. I can click “pair,” at which point it asks me to type in a 6 digit number.

Is there a trick to making it pair without entering the requested PIN number? Having no luck Googling this one. There are one or two articles on accomplishing the same in Linux, but nothing for Mac.

The controller is not anything special, but it’s small enough to fit in my kids’ hands when they play Nintendo games, something that none of the other controllers can do even if they do pair correctly.

[edit] I've since tried this with a newer (2014) iMac at work. Though both it and my own computer (2009 model) use Yosemite, the 2014 iMac doesn't require a pin to be typed in. According to Apple.com, my Mac has Bluetooth 2.1.


texts: Disable Two-Factor Authentication for macOS?

texts:
How to disable Apple’s Two-Factor Authentication for macOS?

Older Macs do not support Two-Factor Authentication. As a side-effect, a user cannot access their iTunes account in iTunes on any older Mac, and cannot buy music.


texts: Is the 3G data rate slower when reception is poorer?

texts: At work, my iPhone gets only limited 3G signal. The "3G" indicator is there, but the signal strength is only 1 or 2 out of 5 bars. Is the download throughput less under these circumstances, compared with the full 5 bars?


texts:
I have a question about my terminal. When I started out working with Rails on my Mac terminal, I would have lines that looked like this as the route for my $:

Nicholass-MacBook-Pro:sample_app nbkincaid$ rails console

But now, I get lines that look like this:

pal-nat184-103-166:desktop nbkincaid$

I'm pretty sure that I didn't change anything, so why does it give me the pal-nat....$ instead of the Nicholas...$?


texts: iOS: it's not possible to share one photo to WhatsApp

texts:
Why there is no way to share a photo to WhatsApp or Evernote?
Is this a WhatsApp and Evernote limitation?
Or an iOS limitation?

This is only possible if you give the app access to ALL of your photos. You apparently can't just share one. In Facebook this is possible. In android this is beautiful. Why iOS has to be like this?


texts: MacBook Pro requires SMC reset after every boot when on battery

texts:
Booting my mid2015 15" MacBook Pro (with FileVault2) from battery works as expected – only that it will hibernate immediately after the user has been logged in. Then I have to perform a SMC reset and I can start it again and work normally until the battery is empty. Apart from that I see no other power-related issues and battery life is still good.

Is SMC maybe somehow broken or is my battery simply approaching its end-of-life?


texts: iTunes: The song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?

texts:
I've deleted cached Apple Music files as I've needed to free up some space on my Mac.

Now whenever I try to play a previously cached (and deleted) song from Apple Music, I get the following error:

When I click Cancel, it starts playing normally (starts streaming as if it wasn't cached before), though I get the same error for every single song that have been previously cached.

How can I make iTunes understand that none of those songs are there on disk and need to be downloaded on demand?


texts: KERNEL PANIC recurring after reinstall for Macbook Pro OS X 10.6.8

texts:
We reinstalled operating system at apple genius bar due to 3-4 previous crashes. Updated and timemachine restored files but it has started crashing again. Is it a firefox problem? Has the problem been reinstalled by timemachine backup? please advise, best twelvemouths

ERROR REPORT:

Interval Since Last Panic Report:  146898 sec
Panics Since Last Report:          3
Anonymous UUID:                    3B32906B-6924-46B7-BD6B-B86DFE1A2A26

Wed Jul 29 22:32:19 2015
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x2abf6a): Kernel trap at 0x356f3ad9, type 14=page fault,
registers:
CR0: 0x80010033, CR2: 0x00000030, CR3: 0x00101000, CR4: 0x00000660
EAX: 0x23d58000, EBX: 0x00000027, ECX: 0x23d5912c, EDX: 0x00000000
CR2: 0x00000030, EBP: 0x35092b88, ESI: 0x00000000, EDI: 0x07bcf800
EFL: 0x00010206, EIP: 0x356f3ad9, CS:  0x00000004, DS:  0x3509000c
Error code: 0x00000000

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

No mapping exists for frame pointer
Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0xbfff5918
      Kernel Extensions in backtrace (with dependencies):
         com.apple.ATIRadeonX1000(6.3.6)@0x356c0000->0x3571bfff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.2.1)@0x35143000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.2.1)@0x351e6000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6.5)@0x2e99a000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: firefox

Mac OS version:
10K549

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun  7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacBookPro1,1 (Mac-F425BEC8)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 21686133350263
unloaded kexts:
(none)
loaded kexts:

Bluetooth: Version 2.4.5f3, 2 service, 19 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Ethernet, Ethernet, en0
Serial ATA Device: WDC WD7500BPVT-00HXZT1, 698.64 GB
Parallel ATA Device: MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-857
USB Device: Built-in iSight, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8501, 0xfd400000 / 6
USB Device: USB2.0 Hub, 0x05e3  (Genesys Logic, Inc.), 0x0606, 0xfd300000 / 2
USB Device: Keyboard Hub, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x1006, 0xfd330000 / 3
USB Device: Apple Keyboard, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x0250, 0xfd332000 / 5
USB Device: iP4500 series, 0x04a9  (Canon Inc.), 0x10c4, 0xfd310000 / 4
USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x0218, 0x1d200000 / 2
USB Device: IR Receiver, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8240, 0x5d200000 / 2
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8205, 0x7d100000 / 2
FireWire Device: Hard Drive FW/USB, LaCie, Up to 400 Mb/sec

------------------------------------------------------------------------


texts:
I'm looking for a Safari extension that will function like this one:

https://decentraleyes.org

The idea is to bypass CDNs because many of these are hosted on domains (by Google and others) that are blocked on my computer.

Is there something like this out there?


texts: Is there an ios App that lets you compute the distance to an object using the built-in camera?


texts: Where does Mac OS X or Safari remember which application to use for Gopher sites?

texts: When I try to access a Gopher site in Safari it opens OmniWeb to open the site. Where does Mac OS X or Safari store which application to use for Gopher sites? (I assume Safari doesn't support Gopher itself?)


texts: How do I enable X-forwarding on OSX Lion?

texts:
ssh works fine when when I log-in from OSX Lion to Lion or Lion to Ubuntu.

ssh -X (X-forwarding) works fine when I log-in from Lion to Ubuntu.

However, I can't seem to get ssh -X to work from Lion to Lion.

How do I enable X forwarding on OSX Lion so I can run x applications from a remote machine?


texts: Display Distortion on Retina Macbook Pro 2014: Is it always the LCD?

texts:
I have a 15" MBP Retina from mid' 2014. Out of the blue the bottom 2/3 of the display turned a dim grey. Randomly this part of the screen will ghost images, flash white, and return to translucent grey. I have ruled out a software issue by resetting PRAM, SMC, and booting it into Windows.
My question is this: What possible parts could be causing this?

(On a possibly related note... I noticed under About This Mac > Serial Number: Unavailible)


texts: My charger has stopped working. I have AppleCare. How do I go about getting a new charger?

texts:
My MacBook Pro mid-2015 charger mysteriously* stopped working today. I have AppleCare but I live in Ireland and there are no Apple Stores here.

Can I go into an Apple authorised reseller and get a new charger for free because I have AppleCare?

If not, what's the process?

*I thought I saw a spark in my room 2 days ago. I was falling asleep at the time. I got up, checked the plugs and unplugged everything in the room (including my MacBook). I can't remember if I've charged the laptop since then though.


texts:
I have a Finder window open to a directory that contains files. They have an associated application to them.

What key combination can I hit to have the selected file opened in its default application?
What's the equivalent of double-clicking that file with the mouse?

I don't want to have to take my hands off the keyboard.

I have tried without success:

Cmd Enter
Ctrl Enter
Option Enter


texts: Will my A1522 iPhone 6 Plus work in New Zealand?

texts:
I know this looks like a very simple and even dumb question, as it would be very easy to check the bands in the website, but it looks that there is something wrong in the specs:

Under Ultrafast LTE, Apple says that the A1522 model doesn't work in New Zealand:

In the iPhone 6 Plus - Technical Specifications, Apple says that the supported bands of the model are "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29". In the Wikipedia page (and other ones), is said that the LTE bands used in New Zealand are 3, 7, 28.

So will my A1522 iPhone 6 Plus work in New Zealand?


texts: iTunes can't download song purchased from old computer, on to new computer

texts:
I bought and downloaded a song in iTunes on a PC of mine. I never synced it to my iPhone. Well, I got a new computer, and no long have the old one. I think there might be a problem now.

Here is what happens when I click Check For Available Downloads in iTunes:

And here is what happens when I click on buy, for the song in the iTunes Store:

Is this a case of a badly worded dialog? I've seen something like this before in the App Store when I needed to reinstall a paid app. In that case I "bought" the app again, the second time without being charged.


texts: I killed taskgated from the Activity Monitor and since then it is not been running. How do I start the process taskgated again?


texts: Strange Weibo location access prompt in iOS Maps

texts:
When I press the "current location" button in the Maps app while location services are completely disabled system-wide (i.e. the Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Location Services setting is disabled), I'm getting a strange popup saying something like "To allow the "Weibo" app to check your location, enable location services. [Go to Settings] [Don't use location]" (I translated it into English so the native English message is likely worded differently).
It's happening on iOS 13.7 and it was also happening on iOS 13.6.1, when I first noticed it.
I have never installed anything Weibo related. In fact I only have a few 3rd party apps installed, none of which are social networking apps (or related in any way to social networking).
The iPhone in question is the latest SE 2020, purchased in Europe from my local Apple Online Store. I haven't jailbroken it and I've kept the iOS up to date. So it's as genuine as you can get.
Also, the region and language are set to my local European ones, and have been set like that right from the start (i.e. I set them in the Setup Assistant and haven't changed since then).
What's interesting is that if I enable the location services globally and then turn them off just for the Maps app, then the location prompt inside the Maps app immediately changes to the "normal" one (i.e. Allow "Maps" to access your location (...)).
Does anyone know what's happening here?
Is it some legitimate Apple-provided "offline" plugin?
Maybe the translation is buggy (someone pasted "Weibo" instead of "Maps")? I'm clueless..


texts: How to copy and paste lines in Nano on OSX

texts:
I would like to copy and paste multiple lines in the command line text editor nano on OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.5

Alt-6 and Ctrl-U do not work as on other platforms.


texts: How to use LG Magic Remote to control a Mac when using AirPlay

texts:
I have recently bought an LG tv running webOS 5 and figured out that I can easily mirror the screen of my 27" iMac running macOS Mojave. The problem is that I have to take my MagicMouse into the living room where I already have MagicRemote which acts like an air mouse. I've couldn't find any options that would enable controlling iMac from tv.
According to this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QldjEJLslDE&ab_channel=IP69
it seems to be possible to control a Windows PC with a LG Magic Remote when mirroring screen on webOS tv.
Is there any way to do it on an iMac as well?


texts: Memory terminology in Mavericks Activity Monitory

texts:
In Mavericks, the Activity Monitor has changed its memory terminology.  The columns available when viewing processes in the memory tab now include "Memory", "Real Memory", "Real Private Memory", "Real Shared Memory" and "Purgeable Memory".

I would have thought that since "Virtual Memory" has disappeared and "Memory" has appeared that they are equivalent, however that doesn't seem to add up because shouldn't then "Memory" be always greater than or equal to "Real Memory"?  (If I'm interpreting the terminology correctly, Real Memory is the number of pages currently resident in RAM, and Virtual memory is the number of pages total, including those swapped out to disk, compressed, etc....) However in Activity monitor, "Memory" is always less than "Real Memory".  Can anyone explain what this mysterious "Memory" metric is?


texts: Addressbook resolution for International Callers

texts:
Numbers in my phone are stored in the following formats

+1.305.555.1212
+1.202.555.1212
+44.222333444
+44.222.33.3444
+91.22.34567890
+91.98765.43210
+91.98.76.543210

All calls from the USA show the proper entry from the Addressbook regardless of the format that the number is stored in my address book.

When I get calls from UK or India, the Addressbook lookup does not work most times - over 90% of the calls just show the number. Very rarely do I actually get the name.

Funnily enough, Addressbook lookup works perfectly for SMS messages.

What do I do to mitigate this?


texts: Selling macbook, best/fastest way to delete data?

texts:
I need help to erase all of my data from my computer...
Selling 2009 Macbook pro w. Lion.
I don't have the startup disks.

So I've created another admin account and am trying to delete mine from there.
But of course, it has been saying "deleting account" for hours.

Faster suggestions?


texts: Block or dismiss notifications based on content?

texts:
On macOS, is there any way to intercept notifications or automatically dismiss specific notifications? I know that I can enable notifications on a per-application basis, but I'm looking for more fine-grained control. Some applications send me a mix of interesting and uninteresting notifications, and I'd like to filter those down so I only see the interesting ones.

Is it possible to intercept notifications before they are shown? For example, are there any hooks that would let me register a shell script to filter notifications?
Is it possible to automatically dismiss notifications after they are shown? Perhaps there is an AppleEvent that could trigger an AppleScript, or some other Automator-based trigger?
Is there some other mechanism I haven't thought about that would allow me to exercise more control about which notifications get shown to me?


texts: What is the recommended way to flag a contact as being deceased in the Contacts app on Lion or Mountain Lion?

texts: Death is a sad fact of life and over the years some of my old contacts have died.  I still wish to keep a record of their details, birthday, day they died, notes, spouse, kids etc in my Contacts and am looking for a recommended way to flag those records to indicate that the person is dead. I am interested to know how other people have dealt with this.


texts: How do I enable automatic capitalization in OS X?

texts: Can I turn on automatic capitalization on my iMac running OS X 10.9, Mavericks? It is selectable in iOS on my iPad but I can't find a similar switch in Mavericks.


texts: How can I quickly navigate through man pages in the Terminal

texts: Is there any way to quickly scroll through text-heavy output in Terminal such as man pages ? Using the up and down arrows only move the screen one line at a time; is there any way to scroll faster?


texts: iPhone 6 discharging instead of charging

texts:
I have an iPhone 6. It's (unfortunately but unavoidably) had repairs at a third-party repair shop for a new battery, and later a new USB connector - I think the contacts finally wore out, I use it a lot.

Now, suddenly, my phone is complaining about my cable, which I'm fairly sure is an authentic Apple cable, and failing to charge my phone. I can still transfer photos and use the hotspot, but even though the "lightning bolt" appears next to the battery icon, the % charge value is going down, rather than up, and rather fast!

Before resorting to another trip to the third-party repair place, is there anything I can try, or check, to see if I can get it to start charging again?

Yesterday:

Today:

Today (five minutes after the 53% screenshot!)


texts: iphone 6 notifications disabling "show on lock screen" is still showing up in lock screen

texts: How can i disable completely the calendar notifications from appearing in the lock screen on iphone 6 version 9.2? I've already unchecked "show in lock screen" w/in notification settings but they still show up when screen is locked.


texts: What's the maximum amount of users I can have on OS X and how many of these can be logged in at the same time?

texts:
One of my friends controls hundreds of Macs for a school. They have Lion.

The 6th grade Macs have the 6th grade accounts (~100), the 7th grade Macs have the 7th grade accounts (~120) and the 8th grade Macs have the 8th grade accounts (~90). There are also some staff accounts.

He doesn't have all the users on all the Macs; I believe that he has them set up to grab the profiles from a server - thus, a user's desktop on one computer is synced with that user's desktop on another computer.

I'm wondering whether or not it's possible to put all ~400 users on each computer so that the grades can use each others' Macs interchangeably. Is it possible to put this many users on a Mac? And how many of these can be logged in at the same time?


texts: Is there a way to setup an ad-hoc network without "losing" the device?

texts:
Right now, when setting up an ad-hoc network, using the "Create Network" feature in OS X/macOS, the device creating the network is "lost" – meaning that it can't be used for normal internet connectivity anymore.

My question would be, if it's possible through some CLI utility or an app to create an ad-hoc network, but still be able to use the Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet?


texts: I cannot turn off iCloud Keychain, please help

texts:
Apple's implementation of two-factor authentication is asking me to input my iPhone password on my Mac.

I feel that this is inappropriate, and I suspect that iCloud (which I have disabled) is attempting to enable iCloud Keychain when I have specifically NOT authorized this.

Compare this to when I login to apple.com. This sends me a one-time password to my device and I type it in. That is what I was expecting.

So, how I do make this dialog go away without providing my iPhone password to my computer or my computer password to my iPhone?

Also, I note that I can set reminders (synced to Apple) on my computer and retrieve them on my phone. So clearly my account sync is working. What additional feature is the computer actually trying to set up with this dialog?


texts: Can I transfer iTunes purchases to new iTunes account

texts:
My wife has had her iTunes connected with her parents and sister's account since middle school.  She hasn't ever synced her iPhone 4 with iTunes in that time, but she wanted to upgrade to iOS 5 to be able to upgrade some apps (pinterest, I think).  We created a new iTunes account, and obviously now I can't sync her old songs and apps.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get all of these songs again?  She has thousands, so it is not feasible to burn them all to CD then rip them all again (in addition to the quality degradation), and I can't buy them all again.

Thanks,

Tim


texts: "Couldn’t create temporary file." error when erasing free space on external disk

texts:
I was trying to wipe the free space of an external USB 3.0 disk in OS X (Yosemite) disk utility. However, I receive the following error:

EDIT: The disk is formatted as GUID / Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and 1.1 of 2.0 TB are occupied.

Do you know what the cause / solution could be? Disk Repair returns no errors.
Do you know of a terminal command to wipe free space?

Thanks!


texts: Is there a way to automatically add a tag to a song once its added to a smart playlist in itunes?

texts: I have a playlist folder called Stars. Inside it I have 5 smart playlists. one playlist for each star rating. 1 star, 2 stars...etc. is there a way for itunes to automatically write a '1' in the grouping tag when i rate a track with one star? thanks!


texts: I am using Skype and have noticed that the tint is kind of strange and the contrast is sort of off.  How do I change the settings for the MacBook Pro's built-in webcam?


texts: How can I manually lock an iPhone X screen

texts:
I have my iPhone X configured to auto-lock in 30 minutes. But sometimes I want to manually lock sooner, is this possible? By lock, I mean require the passcode.  I know that I could set the phone to require a passcode "Immediate" but, I would like to keep it set at 15 minutes for general use.  I only want to force it to require a passcode when I'm out for a run which is just 3 times a week.

I run with the iPhone, and sometimes find it's unlocked and in some unwanted state, due to unintended touches.

I don't have Face ID enabled I just require a Passcode. I know I can press the Side button to make the screen go dark. But for the next 15 minutes, all I need to unlock is swipe up. I want to lock it so that a Passcode is again required. That way when I'm running, nothing will happen other than me accidentally pressing the wrong numbers for the passcode.


texts: What is the purpose of /Users/Shared/adi?

texts:
While backing up my macOS using Time Machine I came across the following folder: /Users/Shared/adi.

What is the purpose of that folder? Can this entry be safely removed?

Btw. There is already some blog post about it, but it really doesn't clear it up.


texts:
Through a series of unfortunate events I managed to run:

sudo chown -R `whoami`:admin /usr

on my 10.10.5 machine. This has left it in an awkward state. I can no longer sudo commands as sudo is no longer owned by root on the machine.

I tried booting in to single user mode and chown'ing /usr back to root:wheel but /usr is a read-only file system in single user mode.

Apart from a total reinstall of OS X on the machine, is there anything else I can do to get the permissions on /usr back to root:wheel?


texts:
I recently needed to show hidden files in my iMac 2011 and had to relaunch Finder to do so. Every tutorial I saw, said to ctrl+click on the Finder icon and then click "relaunch". The trouble is: I don't have this link.

In the end I went to the Apple menu in the top left, and Force quit Finder, which had the same effect.

Does anybody else not have the relaunch button? Is there a problem with my Mac?


texts: How to fix incorrectly sorted albums whose titles contain numbers

texts:
I have an iPod Classic 160gb 6g. In Cover Flow it appears that some of the albums containing numbers in the title will end up at the end of the alphabet. For example, this is the end of the Cover Flow:

Under A Blood Red Sky - U2
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses - U2
Bringing Down The Horse - The Wallflowers
xx - The xx
Young The Giant - Young The Giant
Eagles Greatest Hits Volume 2 - The Eagles
Erasure: Pop! 20 Hits - Erasure
99.5 The Mountain Homegrown Vol. 6 - Live at The Soiled Dove Underground - Various Artists

However, there are some albums, such as these, which are alphabetized correctly:

Greatest Hits, Vol. 1: The Singles - Goo Goo Dolls
The 2nd Law - Muse
TKOL RMX 1234567 [Disc 1] - Radiohead

Why is this happening, and how do I fix it?


texts:
I have set a keyboard shortcut command + L-shift + R-arrow for moving the selected mail to a particular folder. However, it doesn't work (apart from giving the invalid keystroke sound).

  However, I observed a very peculiar behaviour i.e. If I go to the
  Message > Move To (and do not click anything), the shortcut starts
  working.

To shed more light on this weird problem that I am facing, please watch this. In this video, I try to use the shortcut but it doesn't work. However, if I do the steps as shown, the shortcut starts working.

Therefore, I wanted to know why the keyboard shortcut is not working (at first) and why it starts working after that.


texts: How to find the file address location for a file found in Spotlight

texts:
The Spotlight application handily locates files for opening immediately. However, I want to know the found file's address from Spotlight in order to navigate to that location in Finder and move the file elsewhere.

In this specific example, I'm trying to find a .tex file to move to a more memorable location, but I don't remember where it is. Is there a way to find out the exact address location of the found file through Spotlight?


texts: How to sign out of iCloud on iPhone and Macbook without having access to rescue email and with Find my iPhone and Find my Mac turned on?

texts:
I have an iPhone 7 Plus and a Macbook Pro 15" 2014.
I was trying to make calls from Facetime Audio on Mac from my iPhone. My Apple ID was asked on Facetime on Mac. I entered my details and it told me that your account has been locked due to security reasons.
So please enter the answer to your security questions which I don't remember. I entered twice and it greyed out this option of security questions. Now the only thing I was left with was to email myself (through Apple) the reset link so as to reset the password. But here's the bad thing that happened to me: The email that I was using with iCloud and Apple ID was my previous employers email and since I left the job, I couldn't access it anymore. So I couldn't get the reset link. Same thing happened with me on both iOS and Macbook.

Now I can't have iCloud sync between both these devices, can't download anything from the appstores on both the devices. I tried signing out of iCloud on my iPhone (and on Mac) but since my Find my iPhone(Find my Mac on Mac) was ON, it didn't let me sign out. I backed up my iPhone and tried erasing all my iPhone so that I could log in with some new Apple ID but since FInd my iPhone was ON, I couldn't erase my device either. Also tried restoring through iTunes, but all in vain since Find my iPhone was ON.

What should I do now? My Macbook and my iPhone are my primary devices and I can't live without iCloud syncing on.


texts: When I open the Desktop folder where I saved my Xcode project, only a "main" or "swift" file is there, not the whole project. I need to zip the whole project and upload it for homework assignments.


texts: How to get my files of a Windows-formatted HDD?

texts:
I have a very new MacBook Pro. I have an old Windows laptop that died. However I suspect the hard disk is fine. I also have an external HDD that I had used as a backup for that machine (although I hadn't been diligent in actually making backups). I wasn't using special software to make the backups, just dragging and dropping in Explorer.

The external HDD is USB2. For the laptop's internal HDD, I have one of these (a Unitek hard drive dock).

How can I access the files I backed up? It's mostly MP3s and I'd like to keep them on the hard drive without buying a second hard drive to transfer them to, or reformatting. If nothing else, I at least want to view them so I know what I'm losing if I reformat.


texts: 2013 iMac + Bootcamp + Windows 8.1 = BSOD

texts:
I have a 2013 model iMac at work with Core i5 processor (the first generation with the thin edges). It is running OS X Mavericks - the IT department here at work states that I can't upgrade the system to Yosemite due to some "open directory related integration issues." But I was given the green light to install Windows 8.1 in Boot Camp.

I performed the installation as normal. Boot Camp prepared my USB drive from our company provisioned ISO image, installed Windows to the partition, and the Windows OOBE ran. Immediately after, the Apple Boot Camp installer appeared so I allowed it to complete. Upon rebooting after installing Boot Camp, the system can no longer load Windows. A blue screen with the ":(" symbol appears every time.

It flashes by fast enough that I can't recover any information from it. I have found extremely limited information about this, but one post suggests that it is a KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK exception - sounds like an unsigned driver was installed (?)

Is there something I am missing? This seems very un-Apple. Windows 8.1 has been out for long enough that it should be pretty well supported by now, or at least I'd think. The machine is new enough, and even though the Mac OS side is a bit old, the Windows partition shouldn't be affected by this.

Anyone have any advice?


texts: How do I re-add a card that I swiped away from Google Now?

texts:
I accidentally swiped away the Weather card in Google Now for iOS.

Tapping Show sample cards lists the Weather card, but there's no way I can add it again. Under Google Now's settings, it shows that the Weather is On, but it's just not there in my Google Now screen.

I've also tried turning off Google Now, and turning it back on. No dice.

How do I get it back again?


texts: How to move photos from an old eMac to an iPad?

texts:
I need to move about 550 photos from iPhoto on an old eMac to a new iPad Air. The eMac won't be used anymore after everything is transferred. I already tried the following approaches, but they didn’t quite have the expected result:

Sync photos from iPhoto to iPad using iTunes (because the eMac is too old to run the required version of iTunes for the iPad, I used another Mac as an intermediate on which I set up iPhoto). This creates an album like “Pictures from Mac” that can't be removed, any of these photos must be duplicated before they can be edited.
This is not really what's wanted: the idea is to “move” the photos permanently to the iPad, not “make them available on the iPad for viewing”, which is what iTunes sync really seems to do.
Used the app GoodReader to get the files from the eMac via AFP, then added them from GoodReader to the Photos app. This does what's wanted: the pictures can be edited on the iPad without having to be duplicated (and they can be deleted as well).
But all the photos appeared as if they were taken today, rather than on their original date (even though the export from iPhoto to the folder which I accessed through AFP preserved the timestamp of the photos in the “modification timestamp” of the files)

How can I “move” (not “sync”) the photos to the iPad, while preserving the timestamp of the photos?

Some technical info: the eMac is a 1GHz PowerPC G4 one, running OS X 10.5.8 with iTunes 10.6.3 and iPhoto 5.0.4. Software Update reports everything is up-to-date.


texts:
I have a macbook pro 6,2 and don't have the recovery discs as I am traveling abroad and left my discs at home. Is there any way to reformat my hard drive and get it to factory (or near factory) settings without the discs?

Does my computer have a recovery partition and can I use that to reformat?


texts: Network usage whitelist for cell tethering on OSX?

texts: I frequently use my Macbook on my iPad's data plan. Unfortunately, unlike iOS, OSX can't limit application network usage based on whether it's on a cell network, and I always have to remember to close Steam, uTorrent, Dropbox, automatic updates, etc. whenever I start tethering. Is there an app out there that I can turn on and off quickly to whitelist a small number of applications and prevent everything else from using the network?


texts: Macbook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) - Mini Displayport to HDMI **Does not work**

texts:
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010). I'm trying to put it on another monitor through an HDMI adapter. As I'm not able to display the image on the other monitor, the Macbook screen simply blinks when I plug the HDMI adapter into the DisplayPort output. I already tested 2 different adapters and all have the same result.

I also have a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter, and it works normally.

Using macOS Sierra Version 10.12.3;

What could be going wrong?

Thanks!


texts: Show actual image size inside Apple Mail

texts:
Apple Mail offers the option to decrease or increase the size of an attached image. The options are "small", "medium" and "big".

  But how can I display the actual size in KB or MB?

I am using Mail 8.0 in OS X Yosemite.


texts:
So yesterday I dropped my iPhone into the toilet, it was literally submerged for less than 15 seconds and after taking it out I left it in my airing cupboard overnight to dry. Today the phone seems to be completely functional other than a very dark screen (changing brightness won't help).

Was wondering what the best course of action would be and if this is fixable.


texts:
Is there a way to block a list of specific apps on macOS?

I have looked up solutions such as Cisdem, but there are some holes in the way it works that I don't like.

Unless you also block Activity Monitor, Terminal, and System Preferences, you can simply quit the Cisdem process or create a new user to get around it.
You have to block Activity Monitor, Terminal, and System Preferences to make it work well.

I want to block an app from running or even being installed on my Mac. The app can be installed via the App Store and the web. Not sure how to go about this. Enabling Parental Controls won't work as Administrator privileges are needed.

The specific app I want to block is Apple Configurator.

Any ideas?


texts: Where’s the complete list of HomeKit compatible accessories officially approved by Apple.inc?

texts:
I’ve been looking for official HomeKit accessories and found the accessory list that Apple provides us is not complete at all. At the time of asking this question none of the “Circle View” from Logitech and “Temperature and humidity sensor” from Aqara is on the list for instance. I noticed others were also not on the list (August Wi-Fi lock, either), but let me give you a few examples here.

Could you tell me how I can get the whole complete list of HomeKit accessories?
Or why aren’t they on the list in the first place?
Is there any rules how they list the products like limiting to product lines and not mentioning generations of each line?

HomeKit accessory list from Apple:
https://www.apple.com/ios/home/accessories/#section-sensors

Circle View from Logitech:
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/circle-view-security-camera.961-000489.html
← I know it’s quite new, however, Apple should know it before its release since it is Apple who supervise its HomeKit compatibility.

Temperature and humidity sensor from Aqara:
https://www.aqara.com/en/temperature_humidity_sensor.html

Thank you in advance!


texts: How can I force-update HP printer drivers?

texts:
After updating to Big Sur, one of my three Mac Minis doen't recognize my HP6980 LAN-printer (neither on WiFi nor ethernet). It thinks it is a PCL-laser printer. Duplex recognized but it only prints black/white (status color cartridges not shown). The other 2 Mac Minis have no issues.
How do I try to fix this?
Edit 20 dec 2020: The Mac giving the issue has a driver version 2.3
The Macs without issues have driver version 4.0.5. Even after "forcing" BS to choose the correct deskjet instead of the PCL-laser the wrong driver persists.


texts: Deleted thousands of photos from Photos library, and the size is the same

texts:
I have a a Photos library which is around 335GB.

I deleted 23k photos from it (leaving only the photos from 2015-2016) and the size is almost the same: now the size is 330GB.

After deleting them I also emptied the Recently Deleted album.

How to solve this? How to speed up the deletion process?

Using the latest Photos and macOS versions.


texts:
I work in a Mac environment with several Mac minis in the same network. I've a script which I run through Jenkins and this script creates a snapshot (.dmg) of a Mac mini of my choice and saves the snapshot.dmg to a Network Attached Storage (NAS). Everything works fine till here. But now I would like to use the snapshot.dmg and restore it on one of the Mac mini through a script/command line. Can some one tell me how to do this?

I'm aware of the process through GUI, I would like to restore the snapshot.dmg on a Mac mini completely through a script/terminal.

My effort: I've tried using terminal commands such as hdiutil and asr to restore the image but I guess I'm missing something.

So, I've Mac mini A, Mac mini B and a NAS all connected to the same network. I'm trying to restore Mac mini A with snapshot.dmg,located on NAS, with the help of Mac mini B. I've tried running the below command from Mac mini B.

asr restore --source /Volumes/Public/macmini.dmg --target /Volumes/Mac\ OS --erase

The problem is, I'm unable to set the right target.


texts: How to get iTunes Match to match correctly on boxed sets?

texts:
Here's a concrete example: The Beatles Mono and Stereo remastered box sets from 2009. How do I ensure each is:

matched to a box set, not individual albums.
matched to the correct mono or stereo edition.

I ripped and tagged using EAC and Musicbrainz Picard, and the tagging and naming is in the style of a multi-disc set. i.e.:

8-02 The Beatles - With a Little Help From My Friends.m4a

I haven't taken the plunge with these and other boxed sets because I've read in many forums that Match butchers them. I'm curious if someone has discovered a safe(r) method.


texts: Macbook Pro Mid 2012 Black Screen and No Picture On External Monitor. GPU problem?

texts:
My 15" non-retina Macbook Pro Mid 2012 is having some issues. The screen suddenly went out on me as I was using it. There is absolutely no picture going to the screen, so it isn't a brightness issue. I have also tried plugging into an external monitor, and no picture shows up on that either. I am sure the computer is powering up properly, as I can hear applications running in the background.

I have reset the SMC and PRAM numerous times. As far as I can tell, there has been no damage to any parts of the logic board.

Does this mean my GPU is shot and my computer could function properly if I replaced it, or are there other parts I should be inspecting?


texts: In the app store how do you determine if an app is iCloud compatible before purchase?

texts:
A few months ago on the Arqade site I asked if the iOS version of Chrono Trigger put save games in the cloud. DCol provided a great answer detailing how to check if iOS apps you own backup to the cloud:

  To check for other games/apps (if you own them) look under Settings >
  iCloud > Storage & Backup > Manage Storage.

  The apps listed under 'Documents & Data' sync between devices.

  The apps listed under your device's name are backed up, but not synced
  via iCloud unless they are also in the previously mentioned list.

  Some games/apps sync using cloud servers other than iCloud (Eg:
  Dropbox). In this case, they would appear in the back-up list, but not
  the Documents & Data list, but would still be syncing.

While his answer is still the best one given the question I asked I was about to ask a similar question concerning another game. Obviously this won't scale. Is there a way in the app store to determine if an app (game) is iCloud (or other sync service) compatible before purchase?


texts: AppleUSBCDC weirdness after strange incident

texts:
I use my MBP propped on one of those laptop stands, ergo my external USB mouse and USB keyboard (both generic cheap-ass Logitechs) are always connected through a powered Belkin USB hub.

Yesterday I noticed the following — after trying to eject my iPod, my USB mouse started “slowing down”, the pointer wasn’t moving smoothly. Then both the mouse and the keyboard stopped working, the “laser” in the mouse went off. I noticed that the hub became extremely (!) hot and unplugged it. This is how it happened log-wise:

05.01.12 00:55:11,000 kernel: USBF: 29136.223   [0xffffff800b871e00] The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in.  It will keep retrying.  (Port 7 of Hub at 0xfd120000)
05.01.12 00:55:29,000 kernel: USBF: 29154.870   AppleUSBHubPort[0xffffff800b86e000]::FatalError - Port 6 of Hub at 0xfd120000 reported error 0xe000404f while doing get status (second in port status change)
05.01.12 00:55:44,000 kernel: Logitech USB Keyboard::terminate(kIOServiceSynchronous) timeout
05.01.12 00:55:44,000 kernel: USBF: 29169.943   AppleUSBHubPort[0xffffff800b871e00]::FatalError - Port 7 of Hub at 0xfd120000 reported error 0xe00002c0 while doing clearing port feature (1)
05.01.12 00:55:46,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
05.01.12 00:55:46,000 kernel: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 000A2700150DF0AA 0x5ac 0x1209 0x2
05.01.12 00:55:46,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
05.01.12 00:55:46,000 kernel: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 574341535531333731343832 0x1058 0x1001 0x106
05.01.12 00:55:46,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
05.01.12 00:55:54,000 kernel: IOUSBMassStorageClass[0xffffff800cc3e600]: The device is still unresponsive after 6 consecutive USB Device Resets; it will be terminated.
05.01.12 00:55:54,000 kernel: USBF: 29179.967   [0xffffff800cc3ee00] The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in.  It will keep retrying.  (Port 7 of Hub at 0xfd120000)
05.01.12 00:56:03,000 kernel: USBF: 29188.734   [0xffffff800cc3ee00] The IOUSBFamily was not able to enumerate a device.
05.01.12 00:56:04,000 kernel: USBF: 29189.636   [0xffffff800cc3aa00] The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in.  It will keep retrying.  (Port 5 of Hub at 0xfd120000)
05.01.12 00:56:19,000 kernel: USB Optical Mouse::terminate(kIOServiceSynchronous) timeout
05.01.12 00:56:19,000 kernel: USBF: 29205.  7   AppleUSBHubPort[0xffffff800cc3aa00]::FatalError - Port 5 of Hub at 0xfd120000 reported error 0xe00002ed while doing get status (first in port status change)
05.01.12 00:56:19,000 kernel: USBF: 29205.  7   [0xffffff800cc3aa00] The IOUSBFamily was not able to enumerate a device.
05.01.12 00:56:36,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
05.01.12 00:56:36,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
05.01.12 01:00:41,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
05.01.12 01:00:41,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed

When I plug the mouse and the keyboard directly into the two built-in USB ports, everything works fine. I’m using the Belkin hub again, and so far it’s not heating up, everything works. However, every time I connect USB peripherals (=my mouse and keyboard), no matter if it’s the Belkin hub or one the built-in ports, I get something like that:

05.01.12 13:18:55,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
05.01.12 13:18:55,000 kernel: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 574341535531333731343832 0x1058 0x1001 0x106
05.01.12 13:18:55,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
05.01.12 13:18:55,000 kernel: 0        0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed

Mind you, everything works, and so far I haven’t encountered the “jerky mouse” problem or USB timeouts again. What’s going on? Is this normal? Have I somehow fried my Mac’s USB? :(

Thanks in advance for any kind of help!


texts: Transfer Audio output of my MacBook wirelessly

texts:
What is the best way to output the sound of my macbook to my hifi system without using the headphone jack? Is there a way to use bluetooth or airplay or whatever to output all sound (and I mean not only iTunes Music) ?

What hardware do I need for this?

Since Airfoil has a very high latency, is there another solution that has a latency under 1 second?


texts: PC laptop + VNC + Mac Mini server for iOS development. Is it practical?

texts:
[orignally posted to stackoverflow.com - it was suggested that this would be a better place for it]

I'd like to start experimenting with iOS development, but to coin an (awful) phrase: "I'm a PC".  I love my Windows 7 laptop and don't want to move wholesale to a MacBook Pro.  Instead what I'd like to do is buy a Mac Mini and use it as a server.  I've read that:

A Mac Mini is suitable for iOS development.  Add more RAM for a better experience.
MAC OS does support VNC.

I use VNC daily to access Linux machines, but I've never used a Mac.  By "never" I literally mean I have never put my hands on a Mac keyboard - and I've been a programmer for 25 years.

What I specifically don't know - and would like an answer to - is whether using a VNC client from Windows will give me the full Mac OS desktop, sufficient to fully administer the machine and then run the iOS development suite at full fidelity.  And if not VNC, then what?

Thanks.


texts: Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you

texts:
since upgrading to El Capitan, every time my machine tries to make a backup to my Time Capsule, it prompts me with the aforementioned message.

after researching and finding not much, I decided to blow away my long history of backups and create a new one as suggested.  the backup succeeded but the second time it tried to do a backup it failed again.

so now I have to create a brand new backup (of the whole disk) every time I want to make a backup?

this worked fine on Yosemite!

help?


texts: How do I copy a user profile between Macs?

texts:
I have an Mac Pro running Lion, my wife has a Macbook Air also running Lion.

We have the same apps installed.

I want to steal my wife's Macbook while I'm out of town on business.

To do so, I'll have to bribe her, but I'll also need to give her a seamless experience using the Mac Pro for the week.

How can I easily copy her profile, including all settings, mail, and documents, over to my Mac Pro so she can use it, and then send it all back to her Macbook when I get back?

I know there's a migration wizard, but neither of these is a new machine, and I only want to copy one profile (hers).


texts: Delete old "Faces" and other data and thumbnails in iPhoto 9.5.1

texts:
I split my iPhoto Library into two by:

Duplicating it
Deleting most old photos from the new one I will continue to use (and emptying the iPhoto trash)
Deleting the photos from the archived one that will stay in the new library

The issue is that currently, the new library still contains "Faces" and other thumbnail data from photos that have already been deleted (but preserved in the separate archived one).

These are contained in the Data, Data.noindex, Originals, Thubmnails, Masters, Modified, and other directories.

I rebuilt the library with all four methods in iPhoto 9.5.1 following Apple's instructions, but to no avail.

How can I free this new library of legacy files?


texts: How can I quickly add a photo to an album in Photos app?

texts:
I'm reviewing some photos I've taken in the photos app on a Mac. I'd like to put some of them into an album. However, it seems that to do this, for every photo I want to add, I have to click the '+' button and select "Album", which then pops up a modal dialogue where I have to select the name of the album from yet another drop-down, then click OK. There must be a quicker way than this. (Right?) What is it?

By the way: I know that I can select several thumbnails at once using the CMD key, but the problem is my eyesight is really poor (hence squinting at thumbnails gives me a headache), and in any case I want to check the photos are sharp before I add them to the album. So I'm looking for a quick way to add the photo to an album from looking at the photo itself, not from the thumbnails page. If it can be done by keyboard shortcuts, that would be an acceptable solution.


texts: What's the latest version of Boot Camp Assistant that can be installed on Snow Leopard?

texts: And also, where do I download it? Currently it says Boot Camp Assistant is version 3.0.4. And Software Update says everything is already up to date but I see some people say they have version 3.3 on Snow Leopard so yeah I'm rather confused.


texts: How can I mount local folder as SMB folder

texts:
How can I mount local folder as SMB/ AFP share locally?

For example:

I have folder /tmp/myLocalFolder
I want to create smb share to /tmp/myLocalFolder at location /tmp/myShareLocalFolder

How can I do it (in Mojave/Catalina)?


texts:
Good morning,
I have an old Apple server with macOS 10.12 and Server.app version 5.3
Now I need export the information about devices with DeviceName, SerialNumber and ICCID (for iPad)
I found some thread with command for read information with PostgreSQL, but no one with ICCID information.
Someone know the correct select command?
I found this:
1 - connect to the database
sudo psql - U _devicemgr d devicemgr_v2m0 h/Library/Server/ProfileManager/Config/var/PostgreSQL

2 - If you want the names and serial numbers, use
Select "DeviceName", "SerialNumber" of devices;

I try to use:
Select * from devices;

And I see the title of the DB columns listed, but none traceable to ICCID...
Any help?
Thanks


texts: How do I get automator to act on multiple folders?

texts:
I have a number of folders in the following format:

Folder_Name_1
    Converted_Files
        file1.aiff
        file2.aiff
             :
             :
        fileX.aiff
Folder_Name_2
    Converted_Files
        file1.aiff
        file2.aiff
             :
             :
        fileX.aiff
  :
  :
Folder_Name_nnn
    Converted_Files
        file1.aiff
        file2.aiff
             :
             :
        fileX.aiff

I have written a bash script that will move file1.aiff, file2.aiff, etc. up one level into Folder_Name_n and then delete "Converted_Files".

Automator will only act on one Folder_Name_n at a time.

What I want to do is have automator act on Folder_Name_1, then Folder_Name_2, all the way up to Folder_Name_n.

Here is my automator script:

Here's the bash script as text:

cd "$1"
cd Converted_Files
mv *.aiff ..
rm .DS_Store
cd ..
rm -r Converted_Files

Thanks.


texts: Monitor Folder Contents with launchd - Including Subfolders?

texts:
I want to make a shell script that runs any time the contents of a particular folder on my server are changed. Seems easy enough at first, because launchd has a directive called WatchPaths which triggers your script any time the contents of a folder change.

HOWEVER WatchPaths is not triggered by changes in subfolders. The folder I'm trying to watch is a few hundred MB of small web files, nested several levels deep in sub folders. Far too many folders to try to manually list each one.

Is there some other sane way to accomplish this?


texts: Which FileVault 2 recovery option is more secure - storing the recovery key in iCloud, or saving it somewhere yourself?

texts:
When setting up FileVault 2 on a computer, you're presented with 2 recovery options - storing the recovery key with your iCloud account / Apple ID, and displaying the recovery key (for you to write down / save somewhere yourself). However, after doing some research, I found some posts that claim to be able to extract FileVault recovery keys from users' iCloud accounts, which makes me wonder if storing the recovery key with iCloud is the best solution. For a point of reference, I also looked at Apple's whitepaper on FileVault, which explains that the recovery key is protected by a "wrapping" key generated by hashing the responses to 3 security questions. Still, if this exploit's legit, as far as I can tell this would only matter if someone had physical access to your computer.

Given these two recovery options, which would be more secure?

Store recovery key with iCloud
Store recovery key in a password manager, where it's synced to multiple devices via a service like Dropbox

I'm currently thinking option 2 would be, because there's the extra layer of the password manager vault even if the file syncing service were compromised, but that might be equivalent to the wrapping key hashing Apple adds.


texts: Which versions of Windows does a MacBook Pro from 2008 support with Boot Camp?

texts:
Can my Mac use Windows? And if so, which Windows do I get?

Version: OS X El Capitan (Version 10.11.16)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2008)
8GB Memory


texts: How to get rid of firewall "accept incoming connections" dialog?

texts:
I've accepted this so many times that firewall should already remember it.

For example, I get it for Eclipse when starting my java programs in debugging mode ... sometimes this dialog is displayed only very shortly, like half second, and disappears. I also get it for iTunes (when I enable sharing my library), and other programs, even though I have them listed in Firewall preferences panel (adv. settings).


texts: iPhone pair iphone bluetooth with media audio but not with phone audio

texts:
I just switched from Android to an iPhone.  With Android, once the phone pairs with a bluetooth device, I can go into the settings for that device and determine which bluetooth interfaces it uses.  For instance, for the radio in the car, I can set it up to handle media audio, but not phone audio.

Is there a way to do this with an iPhone?


texts: How does a program modify /usr but I am unable to even with admin privileges?

texts:
I have just installed latest Xquartz and FSL imaging software.  I noticed that there is a new symbolic link in /usr (i.e. /usr/X11R6) to /opt/X11. My understanding was that only Apple software could be certified/signed to modify /usr under the new SIP in El Capitan.  I am certainly unable to modify /usr directly with sudo so SIP is turned on.

It definitely is new - I had a previous xquartz install with a /usr/X11 symlink created prior to El Capitan upgrade which remained in place.  However, FSL needs a /usr/X11R6 symlink which I tried to create manually to no avail because of SIP.

After upgrading to latest Xquartz now I have both /usr/X11 and /usr/X11R6 symlinks.  It's not a 'problem' but I'm not clear how it got there.

Can someone explain how this works?


texts: What kind of input Jack can work on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012) audio input port?

texts:
I was planning to buy a new mic for my MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012), but I tried connecting an old mic and nothing happened. The old mic is not broken, because I tested it on another PC and it worked.

I just want to know if I can connect the mic that I was planning to buy.

I was thinking of this microphone: http://www.amazon.com/Tonor-TN12326-Professional-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B00PZMP3Z0


texts: Has anyone tried using FFMPEG for converting Slow Motion video captured on an iPhone to something usable on PC?

texts:
I was searching for how to move Slow Motion video from my iPhone 7 to my Windows PC. All the answers were coming up using iMovie and other Apple software.

As I was not moving the video to a Mac this was not useful. I did find my old friend FFMPEG could make the move quite nicely. Using the command:

ffmpeg -i SlowMotionVideoFromIphone.mov -vf "setpts=4*PTS" SlowMotionVideoOnPC.mp4

does a nice job with the video, but I've not found how to re-sync the audio yet. That's why I am asking if anyone else has tried this and found a solution for both video and audio?


texts: Is there a way to force a Mac laptop to stay in a specific resolution?

texts:
I sometimes open up my Macbook Pro and notice that my laptop panel is an odd resolution. When I check Display settings, it shows "Best for Display", when I really want the highest setting always.

Is there a utility or command that can be used to automatically set the display resolution automatically?


texts: Filesystem for external hard disk that is cross-platform compatible

texts:
All my previous backup disks are either ext3, ext4, ntfs or fat32. I am having tremendous difficulty accessing my files easily from my mac (even with tools such as Tuxera). I did not expect an OS to not support access open file systems!

So now comes the time to format a new external hard disk where I will keep copies of some of my files (no time machine, just copies of some of my files and maybe an rsync partition). I need to be able to read this disk easily from any linux machine. I suppose FAT32 would work, but it would not support large files. What is the best solution here?


texts: Have touchbar show vol up, vol down, brightness up, brightness down buttons by default

texts:
How can I make my touch bar ALWAYS show the Volume Down, Volume Up, Brightness Down, Brightness Up buttons?

I absolutely hate having to touch the button, look down at the slider, and try to drag it into the right position.

Is it possible for me just to show these controls by default (basically the old keyboard layout)?


texts: External hard drive is snapping/making weird sounds in sleeping mode

texts: I have an external hard drive connected to macbook. When I am listening to music and my mac is not in sleeping mode everything is fine, but after 15 min. when display is turning off and music is still playing my hard drive has very weird behavior - it looks like it turning on/off every 40 seconds 'to load a little bit of music and continue sleeping' making simultaneously ugly sounds/snaps. I don't remember the same behavior when I used Windows.


texts: Possible to independently use Macbook Pro and external monitor?

texts:
Guess I'm getting old and set in my ways using Spaces and Expose on my Macbook Pro.  I like my hotspots as they are and flip through the four screens with ease (option-arrow).  My work recently bought me an external monitor which I'd like to try and incorporate into my daily activities.  So, in my ideal world, I'd love to do the following:

Detach the displays in System Preferences -> Displays -> Arrangement so that the only way to move between monitors is by clicking/dragging via Spaces (where all eight screens show). I'd also want the monitor that I'm not working in to be unaffected by my movement through Spaces in the other.

Is this, or something similar, possible?  Thanks so much for any help!

Mel


texts: Set custom scaling on Retina MacBook Pro (13inch)

texts:
I want my scaling to look like 2560x1600. Currently, according to Display preferences, it looks like 1680x1050, and that is the smallest option.

I want everything to be WAY WAY smaller. My eyes are super good and I bought a MacBook with a retina display for a reason - so I could fit more stuff on the screen.

Notice how in the attached screenshot underneath the picture of the MacBook, it says "Looks like 1680x1050". That is no good. I need to fit a lot of stuff on my screen at once.

An example is when I open up League of Legends in Retina resolution, the cursor becomes extremely tiny for 3 seconds. That is how I want my whole Mac to look like.

Is there any way to set the scaling to 100%, like you can in Windows?


texts: Hard drive in external enclosure won't mount

texts:
I'm trying to retrieve data from an old MacBook.

I've removed the hard drive, put it into an external enclosure, and connected it to my current MacBook.

This is the structure of the drive in Disk Utility:

I'm trying to access Macintosh HD, but when I turn the hard drive on only Recovery HD mounts. (Although I'm not able to eject it.)

I've tried mounting it manually and running First Aid.

Disk Utility sees how big the drive is, and how much of it is used, which gives me some confidence, but other than that I'm stumped.


texts: how i can disable writing /etc/hosts file in MacOS

texts:
i got some problem, i want to disable [removing, deleting or writing a file] via administrator (sudo user) in MacOS.

for example i want a create a some db of blocked websites without any web filters.

i want disable access for any user in system for hosts file with no control.


texts: Can't add any email connection on macOS Mojave

texts:
I am not able to add a new internet account/email account to my Mac.

After entering all required information, I am just seeing an infinity loop. No timeout - nothing.

This happens with new accounts and already existing ones. Also, I don't see any attempt for a connect on the mailserver (I am the admin there as well).

Tried deleting all information from the keychain. No luck.

Also using Thunderbird didn't work. I have tried rebooting the router, a wifi hotspot on the iPhone (different ISP), different dns entry for the mailserver (to avoid certificate clash), hosts entry and disabling the firewall.
A telnet connection to the according ports works fine.

Also tried adding the account on a different Mac, which worked perfectly fine.

Any suggestion is more then welcome.


texts: My question is: where does one find this option in the preferences for Safari Version 7.0.3 (9537.75.14)? I cannot find this option anywhere: not in Mac OS X System Preferences or in Safari’s own Preferences. I would love to be able to save the passwords for these sites, so that I don’t have to keep regenerating and re-remembering them.


texts: El Capitan Installer consistently corrups HFS+ superblock

texts:
The standard, non-beta El Capitan installer corrupts the HFS+ superblock, and states that it cannot fix the hard drive and cannot continue with installation. (The repair tools won't fix the hard drive even in single user mode.)

What is confusing me is that the backup of the superblock remains valid, and upon writing the backup over the corrupted current superblock the drive appears on the boot options screen again. And I can boot into Yosemite with none of my apps/data are affected.

That said, if I run the installer again it munges the current superblock and leaves the backup still valid. So I can repair the drive again and boot normally. (And continue this process ad-nauseam)

A: Why doesn't disk utility check for the fact that the current and backup superblocks are different. And attempts to test with the backup if it can't otherwise repair the drive. (Even in single user mode)

B: Why does the OSX installer consistently  corrupt only the superblock, leaving nothing in the rest of the drive broken. I have done this, including re-downloading the installer, five times at this point. Mostly out of morbid fascination now.

I am testing from

Yosemite.
13 inch Mid 2013 Air.
Drive un-encrypted.
22GB of HD free.

SSD drive health is reported as excellent.

Any ideas on how I can get out of this cycle?
Thanks for any feedback.

PS Tempted to just try the Sierra beta and see if whatever this problem is is patched in the next installer.

Edit: I ended up trying the current Sierra beta, with the exact same results.


texts:
For the last few days I've been getting a message on my lock screen

  Unlocking with Apple Watch is not available while your screen is being shared

A tad worrisome but I sort of disregarded and chalked it up to maybe a go2meeting screenshare not properly telling the os it's done or my some bug related to my secondary monitor being attached.

But I got it this morning after a full restart and without my secondary monitor attached. Now I'm kinda worried! Is my screen being shared with someone?! How would I even know?!

note that screen sharing is off:


texts: iTunes shows that iPhone has photos, whereas 'Photos' app shows iPhone has no photos

texts:
iTunes shows that my iPhone holds 2,061 photos.

However the 'Photos' app  shows that my iPhone has no photos.

Which is correct? Why the discrepancy?

iMac: macOS Sierra, Version 10.12.4
iPhone: iPhone 4, Version 7.1.2 (11D257)
iTunes: 12.6.0.100
Photos: Version 2.0 (3150.4.120)


texts: Can I change the locale for a single application?

texts: Is it possible to change the locale on a per-application basis in OS X 10.8? Background: I'd like to play "Larry Reloaded" in English, but my user locale is German. The game detects this, and switches to German voices and texts. I don't want to create a new user just for the game, nor do I want to switch the locale manually when starting the game, and back again after quitting.


texts: How to debug Safari CPU utilization and spinning beach ball?

texts:
I have been plagued by performance problems in my late 2010 MacBook Air for several months now. Most of it seems centred around Safari. I regularly get very high fan speeds (loud to the point of very annoying), very warm laptop, high load average, and spinning BBOD (beach ball of death), especially on Safari.

I consistently have a single window, 8-10 tabs, none of them heavy dynamic apps (Gmail and Calendar running in Chrome).

I regularly have CPU spikes from Safari and WebContent (and at times soagent). They rarely last very long, but when they do, I see the BBOD and Safari is completely unusable, then the rest of the laptop slows down to a crawl.

I have taken a spindump of Safari - it takes a very long time - but I do not actually know how to interpret it to see where it is stuck.

I have almost no extensions installed. Just 1Password, AdBlock and ClickToPlugin (which was installed specifically to prevent Flash and others from bogging it down).

What can I do to narrow down the issue?


texts: Switch wireless keyboard/trackpad while using iMac as external monitor

texts:
I have an iMac with a pair of wireless keyboard/trackpad and another Macbook Pro (MBP). I just got a thunderbolt cable and try to use iMac as an external monitor for the MBP.

However, one problem is that, I have to press cmd+F2 on iMac. Then after that the wireless keyboard/trackpad will have problem pair with MBP using bluetooth, because it's still paired with iMac.

Is there a better way to have keyboard/trackpad easily switch between my iMac and MBP? I know two of the solutions but none of them seems to be very appealing to me:
1) Buy another pair of keyboard/trackpad just for MBP
2) Logitech got a easy-switch keyboard but no easy-switch trackpad

Any suggestion would be great. Thanks.


texts: iPhone 5 hanged and now cannot be entered

texts:
Was using Chrome and WhatsApp on my iPhone 5 when the two apps hanged. Since I was unable to activate multitasking, such as to restart those apps, I tried to lock the phone. However, upon locking my phone, I was unable to unlock the phone. The phone is still switched on, since I can still activate Siri, but the lock screen is pitch black, so I am unable to access my passcode lock screen to unlock the phone. Essentially, my phone is switched on, but is effectively a brick. I am unable to do a hard reset on my phone, since my switch does not work (as a result of being used too often, the wire in the switch has come out of place and renders the switch obsolete).

I connected my phone to my MacBook Air so as to backup and then restore the phone, but the backup has failed a few times, so I cannot restore the phone yet. Does anybody know how I can troubleshoot my phone to get it working properly again?


texts: Expand Finder column width with keyboard shortcut

texts: I can expand the column width in Finder (OS X El Capitan, MacBook Pro) by clicking on the right-hand line of the column (see red arrow in screenshot). When I click this line, the column width is expanded to the width of the longest file name. How can I do the same with a keyboard shortcut?


texts: Is there a iPod touch 1st gen recall program by Apple?

texts: I have a iPod touch 1st generation and was about to sell but somebody said to me to get in touch with Apple because apparently they are recalling them and I could get a iPod touch 5th gen? Is this right, and if so how could I do that?


texts: Running services with keyboard shortcuts has a 0.5 second delay

texts:
I've created app launchers for certain apps in Automator and assigned keyboard shortcuts from the Keyboard Preferences menu.

When I use these shortcuts I get a 1/2 a second delay.
It seems like it's using the menu Services sub-menu to run the script and that seems to cause the delay.

Is there any way to circumvent this and run it immediately?

Thanks.


texts: Are my external disks fried? Can they be salvaged, formatted or partitioned back to Exfat?

texts:
TL;DR

I have two brand new 2TB JMicron Generic Media external 2.5" HDDs and one old 128MB flash drive. All three were usable (they've been used for transferring files, not Time Machine). Now both the 2TB are unusable and my flash drive has been reduced to 8MB (also unusable). When connecting any of the drives to my Mac Book Pro (Retina mid-2015, 10.10.3), I get the dialog box saying "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." "[Initialize | Ignore | Eject]".

Questions

Are my external disks fried?
Can they be salvaged, formatted or paritioned back to Exfat?

How the 128MB pendrive got reduced to 8MB and now unusable

On the MBP, I was transferring some files onto the 128MB pendrive but for some reason the transfer was unsuccessful. I think I may have disconnected the flash drive without ejecting. Upon connecting it to my Windows laptop I saw that it was reduced to 8MB and no longer usable (can't be formatted). I should mention that straight after connecting to the Windows laptop, I got a notification that a Chipsbnk driver was installed. This was while one of the unusable 2TB disks was connected as well. Perhaps this resulted in a power/voltage power problem...?

How the two 2TB External 2.5" HDDs became unusable

After trying to partition the 2TB drives they both became immediately unusable.

Attempts to resolve

I tried using the Undelete Plus software on Windows but after scanning (all three drives), I couldn't recover anything. For the 128MB flash pendrive, on Windows I used the clean command via Diskpart on the CMD software. However, I wasn't able to create partition primary or convert to mbr. Switching back to Mac, I tried sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk1 bs=8m but this hasn't changed anything.

I also couldn't complete this on the 2TB drives because it would take >100 days (I've mentioned this in my question, linked above). After many attempts to repair/resolve the 2TB drives, I still wasn't able to format/partition them on Mac or Windows. Please see my previous question for what I tried: Unusable 2.5" external HDD. Partition failed with the error -69760: Unable to write to the last block of the device. Exfat only? Repairable?

NB. I'm not 100% sure if there is a link between what happened to my 2TB drives and the 128MB flash drive.

I may be wrong but here's why I think these drives are not fried yet

A few years ago, I frequently transferred files back and forth between my MBP and my Windows laptop. At that time I used a 32GB Transcend flash pendrive until that pendrive completely stopped working — I can't remember exactly why but I think I may have disconnected it while a transfer was apparently still going on. When I connect this pendrive to my MBP, I couldn't find it listed under diskutil list. Neither does it show up on my Windows computer management software. So I assume this drive has been completely fried, even though the blue light on the pendrive still blinks upon connecting to a computer. Whereas the three drives mentioned above are still listed under diskutil list.


texts: Where does GarageBand put its downloaded instruments and loop libraries?

texts:
I've been using the new(ish) GarageBand on Lion for a month or so now. Early on, it prompted me to download instrument sample libraries and loops of around 1.5 GB which were not included in the initial installation. Then, it wanted a similarly-sized download to support iOS GarageBand files. I just recently found another download to enable more loops and MIDI voices.

What is the total size of all of these extra downloads, and where do they go?


texts: Why my CodeRunner mac app keep output “(B[m” before my correct output?

texts:
When I code test ruby script, it keeps output "(B[m" before my other output, even thought I just have single line puts statement.

Just as follow:

See the "(B[m" before my output text "      test". It's really annoying me for a long while. Any help will be preciated!

Update:

It occurs at CodeRunner version 1.3.1, and in latest version(2.2.1) I also get a "(B" there!


texts: Installing Lion from custom DIY DVD or USB fails

texts:
After upgrading to Lion my computer is really slow. Chrome-takes-a-minute-to-open-a-tab slow. I decided to do a clean Lion install and copy all my stuff to see if that fixes it, so I got a new hard drive for this.

I burned the Lion image to a DVD and also a USB memory. The first time I tried installing, everything seemed to go well until rebooting. I got a kind of forbidden sign and a spinning wheel (with the gray boot background).

I booted from the DVD again and it said "Install failed, try again." but the installer wasn't run again. I found it on / by using the console and run it manually. Both from the DVD and the USB I did several installs, making sure the Internet connection was working before starting and in all cases it finishes, reboots and it looks like the partition in the hard drive is not bootable. It won't boot from hard drive.

Any ideas what's going on and/or how to solve and perform this clean install?

Thank you.


texts:
I own a 2016 Macbook (with the USB-C charging) - at the time and in response to all of the reports of poor cables and poor chargers, I bought a meter so I could see what the throughput of my cables/chargers was. However, having run some tests I'm now not sure what to consider normal / what is harmless to the battery.

For all tests I used an original Apple C-C cable - though was able to replicate with two third party cables I own.

I have the original Apple block charging at 14.3 V / 1.99 A and a third party block that charges the same.

Another third party block which advertises USB PD and 3 A is currently charging at 20 V / 1.43 A

I've done some research online but I can't find any articles that indicate what a normal USB PD output is relative to the devices that connect to it and would appreciate any guidance / assistance.

TL;DR: Have Apple charger which charges at one voltage/amperage. Bought several others advertised at PD which are higher voltage, lower amperage. Not sure what is 'safe', or 'fast', or does least overall damage to battery.


texts: How to update the EFI firmware of a replacement logic board of a MBP mid-2015 to make it compatible with Mojave?

texts:
Apple has put me in a pickle. I had a lot of parts (battery, display, logic board) of my MBP mid-2015 replaced at the local Apple Store. When it was returned to me, it had a big new problem: it would keep booting into internet recovery mode (although it eventually did boot), but eventually ended up freezing while I was using it. Trying to reboot into recovery mode put me in the same internet recovery cycle

However, it turns out that my MBP runs fine from a bootable external backup SSD over USB. Since running Disk First Aid at that point found no errors on the internal SSD, I thought I would try to reinstall Mojave from the SSD, but when I did so, the installer refused, informing me that my Mac had an incompatible firmware version and suggesting that I try to install Mojave on a HFS+ disk! (alas, my MBP's flash drive is formatted as APFS encrypted). It was then that I realized that what must have happened is that the replacement motherboard has an earlier firmware version that is incompatible with OS X 10.14.1 installed on the MBP's internal flash drive, and the so-called "geniuses" at the Apple Store didn't think about this.

The problem is this: how can I update the logic board firmware so that it is compatible with Mojave? I just tried an internet recovery install of Mojave, but the installer refused for the same reasons as before (incompatible firmware). I can't even see a way to downgrade the internal flash drive to HFS+ …

Is my MBP able to run from the external SSD because it happens over USB, or because that SSD happens not to be encrypted?


texts: macOS High Sierra not trying other DNS servers

texts:
On one of my laptops which is running macOS High Sierra, is failing to resolve hostnames. I have specified two DNS servers in my network settings. One is an internal DNS server, and the other is 8.8.8.8. When I try to resolve local hostnames that the internal DNS knows, it resolves properly. But when I try to resolve something like google.com it fails.

I see that it tries to use the internal DNS server first, and since it doesn't know the hostname, I thought it would try to use 8.8.8.8 to resolve the hostname, but it never tries the other DNS server.

When I try this from my other laptop, it works properly i see

$>nslookup google.com
;; Got SERVFAIL reply from <internal dns>, trying next server
Server:     8.8.8.8
Address:    8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   google.com
Address: 172.217.5.110

But from the one where it doesn't I see

$>nslookup google.com
Server:        <internal dns>
Address:    <internal dns>#53

** server can’t find google.com: SERVFAIL

There is no attempt to try the 8.8.8.8 DNS server. Why is that happening? How can I get it to try the other DNS server if it fails with one.


texts: Can I make Apple Mail use "m" as the "mark unread" hotkey?

texts: I'd like to make "m" the hotkey for marking emails unread, since that's the same key as every other email or RSS application uses, and command+shift+u is unwieldy. The only place I can find to set this is the global hotkeys and it won't let me use unmodified keys (presumably because that would break things). Is it possible to do this?


texts: Inkscape on OSX copies rasterized images from SVG

texts:
I'm trying to copy an object out of an SVG file using inkscape, however when I paste it back in to a new inkscape file it's no longer the svg version, but a rasterized version.
I'm not sure if it's because inkscape runs in XQuartz and the clipboard is behaving odly.


texts:
I'm upgrading my mum's iPad from iOS 6.1.3 to 9.3 and it is coming up with a verification error. The obvious solution is to redownload the update and update from there.

There is however one issue, I can't find the update in Settings. All guides say to go to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud usage > Manage storage

however I just have:

Settings > General > Usage

and then a list of apps (none of which are iOS 9.3 or even add up the the total data usage) and below that settings for managing iCloud.

So my question is what is the procedure to delete the update on the ipad.


texts: Spoofing the OS version to trick a buggy installer

texts:
I've been tasked with supporting a print shop using Kodak Prinergy 6.1, which is ancient. I need to install it on a new machine. The problem is that the installer has a bug where it compares OS versions lexicographically, so it doesn't grok that 10.13 is newer than the required minimum of 10.4.

Is there a way I can trick the installer into thinking I'm running 10.9?


texts:
I am making a script for my parents on their Mac's so that they can SSH into my Linux computer, and send commands, create popups etc.

This is one of my commands:

sshpass -p Password ssh maliciouzzhd@10.0.0.1 export DISPLAY=:0 & mate-session-save --force-logout

My problem is that the Mac treats the "&" as not in the sshpass script, and executes the argument after using the Mac terminal, no SSH.

So

sshpass -p Password ssh maliciouzzhd@10.0.0.1 export DISPLAY=:0 & mate-session-save --force-logout

would execute

export DISPLAY=:0

in the SSH session, but

mate-session-save --force-logout

would be executed in the Mac terminal.

If anyone could help me out with this, it would be greatly appreciated.