texts:
Testing netboot on a Macbook Pro 9,2 with Yosemite installed.
Infoblox DHCP/DNS (Linux style) giving out IP address.
Reservation for this Mac is set - Logging into OSX provides correct IP etc.
I have a OSX Server with Netinstall running.

If I try a netboot (press N at power on), this results in the globe flashing but eventually just reverts to disk boot. Checking the Netinstall server logs, there is no activity - the client didn't attempt to conact.

If I try to boot to menu (press Option key), I get an option of booting from the disk, or selecting a WiFi network. There is no ethernet network option. If I press N at this point, nothing happens.

It appears that the ethernet port is not working at this stage in the process, even though it works when booting to OSX. Can anyone advise? How can I check this?

Using the latest available:

BOOTROM: MBP91.00D3.B08 (EFI 2.9)
SMC: 2.2f44 (SMC 1.8)


texts: How to switch to windows that dont belong to any running application?

texts:
So, I installed an application that runs in the menu bar in OS X Mavericks. When I open that application's window (from the menu bar), there seems to be no obvious or intuitive way to switch back to that window with the keyboard after I've moved focus away from it.

When I try Cmd + Tab, I see the list of running apps (Finder, Chrome). I thought that this window was possibly associated with Finder. However, when I switch to Finder (using Cmd + Tab) and then try to use Cmd + Backtick, the window never receives focus.

I don't think it matters what the application is; I'm betting that this problem would occur with any app that runs in the menu bar and opens a new window. I will confirm this as I continue to install apps. However if you think it matters, the app in this case is called "Spectacle" from spectacleapp.com.

UPDATE:

The same exact issue happens when you open a window like "App Store Help" from the AppStore. The OS basically leaves a window that is orphaned from the Cmd + Tab list or any other keyboard centric way of setting focus.


texts: iPhone purchased from Apple: portability between MVNOs

texts:
If a Verizon iPhone is purchased from Apple.com:

Can it be pressed into service via any MVNO that uses the VZN network?
Can it be used with any GSM carrier?

If necessary, assume the 2020 iPhone SE.


texts:
I'm still confused with the use of this word.  In Everymac.com for example, Unibody macbook pros are 2008 to 2012 (up to Retinas).  But then it's also used in Macbooks (not Pros).

Is there a definition of this term that’s somewhat authoritative?


texts: Applescript to set non focus tab in safari

texts:
I made a script to find an tab based on it's URL and set a new URL (the tab is not focused)

tell application "Safari"
    set topWindows to every window whose name is not ""
    set numWindows to the number of topWindows
    set didFind to false
    set targetUrl to "https://www.apple.com"

    repeat with x from 1 to numWindows
        set numTabs to the number of tabs in window x
        repeat with y from 1 to numTabs
            set tabUrl to the URL of tab y of window x
            if tabUrl contains targetUrl then
                set didFind to true
                tell window x to set current tab to tab y
            end if
        end repeat
    end repeat

end tell

set myLink to "https://www.apple.fr"

tell application "Safari"
    tell front window
        set URL of tab y to myLink
    end tell
end tell

The correct tab is found, the index is found, but it's seems to always open the URL in a the latest tab instead of the existing tab

how can I fix this?


texts: What external hardware allows a fingerprint to login/unlock a Mac?

texts:
I own a mid-2009 MBP with OS X Mavericks installed. I'm a hi-tech enthusiast who wants to use the fingerprint scanning feature made available by many scanners on the market to login into my account after boot and unlock the screen after the screensaver has started.

The scanner I'm willing to buy is a DigitalPersona U.are.U-5160 which is not only FIPS 201 PIV certified, but it's also designed to work in harsh environments and situations. See: http://www.fulcrumbiometrics.com/Digital-Persona-U-are-U-5160-p/101106.htm

Please note that I've already read this article on StackExchange (How can I enable fingerprint authentication on a Mac? What compatible scanners are available?) which talks about the same, but I've found nothing interesting in it.

In particularly, supposed that I've gotten all the Smart Card Services/CAC Libraries:

How do I switch from password login to fingerprint login?
Can I use fingerprint login with FileVault 2 too? (i.e. decrypting the HD using my fingerprint, with no passwords to type)

I think these features require dedicated API's or SDK's, and Apple stopped deploying them since it bought AuthenTec. Now, all fingerprint-scanning feature are officially unsupported by Apple except for the iPhone 5S.

I've read somewhere that LastPass does a very similar job indeed, and is used for the purposes I've listed.

How can I achieve this?


texts: Completely clear all output from a Terminal window

texts:
I would like to clear all output from a Terminal window (including all historical output) to get it back to a clean state as if you had just opened a new Terminal window, or a new Terminal tab.

I can use the clear command to clear just the current screenful, but then you can still scroll up to see all the historical output. I'm using the Terminal to trace program output and at the end I would just like to do ⌘ + A to select all the text so I can grab the output from the just last run, without having to scroll up and see where it started. I could also just open a new tab, I was just wondering if this can be done in the same window?


texts: How can I avoid seeing an Apple ID password field on my iPhone 5?

texts: Whenever I unlock my iPhone 5 I go to an app or text or call someone then a keyboard pops up and says apple ID password and at the bottom it says cancel or continue i always click cancel but I just got my phone so it can't be broken and this happens every time I use it


texts: How can I take a screenshot on an iPhone while Guided Access is on?

texts:
I’m trying to take a screenshot of a problem that’s occurring with Guided Access on my iPhone. Is this possible?

I’ve had no luck with the usual method of simultaneously pressing the Home and Power buttons. This limitation exists even before I tap the Start button within Guided Access. Just being within the initial screen keeps the screenshot function from working.

I tried to find an answer to this question via standard web search, but found nothing.

Note: I’m using a beta version of iOS 13, but I assume that this same problem exists in iOS 12 and earlier.


texts: MBP 2017 making high pitched noise when in Target Disk Mode

texts: Recently, when I was transferring data between two MBPs, I found that the 15-inch 4 Thunderbolt MBP 2017 was making a high-pitched noise when in Target Disk Mode and connected to another mMc. It doesn't matter whether the MBP was charging or not. It doesn't matter when I connect; as soon as I do, it starts making high-pitched noise. What is a possible explanation for this? The MBP does not make high-pitched noise when in Target Disk Mode but not connected to another mac, when booted up into recovery system, when booted up into 10.13, or when booted up into 10.15.


texts: Is OS X 10.10.2 faster than Windows 8.1 on same hardware?

texts: I run geekbench on some computer on 10.10.2 get 7500,and on windows on same computer get 7200,does this mean OS X 10.10.2 faster than Windows 8.1 on same hardware?


texts: How can I access cache files in chrome in IoS?

texts: In my iPhone 7plus, is there a way that I can access the pdf which I saw a few days ago on a website?


texts: Extending an Airport Express (latest) with a Time Capsule (4th Generation)

texts:
Will there be a reason not to use an Airport Express (latest model) as the main wifi router and then have the network be extended through an Time Capsule (4th Generation) on bridge mode?

Is the above possible?

Thanks,


texts: External Display and Blurry Fonts on El Capitan

texts:
I am one of the many who have extremely blurry fonts on external displays connected to my 2014 MacBook Pro. The solution for me has always been to follow this guide which runs a ruby script and puts the result in an overrides folder.

EDIT: By turning off the new "rootless" feature of El Capitan I was able to gain access to the overrides folder, however it does not appear to have worked. Anyone had any luck fixing the blurry fonts on external displays for El Capitan?


texts: Trouble changing default search engine in Safari

texts:
I'm trying to change my default engine in Safari (running Yosemite) from Google to DuckDuckGo and I'm not successful. I changed the default engine in "Safari→Preferences→Search". When I type into the address bar I see "DuckDuckGo search" in the suggestions, but then the search goes straight to google.

I checked the output of "defaults" and didn't see anything system-wide either. Did anyone encounter this problem?


texts: Can I disable the Magic Mouse swipe to go back feature in Safari?

texts:
I have an Apple Magic Mouse, and in Safari, when I swipe my fingers left and right on the mouse,  first the page scrolls left or right if there is a horizontal scrollbar, and then if there is no scrollbar or the scrollbar is already at the edge, then Safari will go back/forward in my history.

This is particularly annoying when I am trying to scroll left / right, and accidentally scroll too far and navigate off the page.

For example, if I'm answering / editing a question on StackOverflow which has

some really long code block example which is so wide it gets a horizontal scroll bar or the text area has a scroll bar
some really long code block example which is so wide it gets a horizontal scroll bar or the text area has a scroll bar
some really long code block example which is so wide it gets a horizontal scroll bar or the text area has a scroll bar
some really long code block example which is so wide it gets a horizontal scroll bar or the text area has a scroll bar

if I quickly swipe left / right to read the code, I often accidentally leave the page I'm on.

Can I disable the "swipe to navigate" back / forward function of Safari? I only want to use swiping to scroll, not to navigate.


texts: iMessage went from showing what time it was read to just delivered?

texts: I sent an iMessage and it showed it was read at 18.01. Few hours later it just says delivered and the message i sent before the last one shows the time it was read. Why did it go from read at 18.01 to just delivered? Have i been blocked by this person or what?


texts: How to get BSD FTP and Telnet back in 10.13 (High Sierra)?

texts:
There are some real problems with not having ftp and telnet present in 10.13 now as per Apple's dictate.

Has anyone found a solid way to bring BSD ftp and telnet back to macOS vs using inetutils?


texts: tmutil doesn't create a real snapshot (since Catalina?)

texts:
I'm using rsync on top of a mount_apfs snapshots, to backup a consistent file system view and without having to stop applications during the backup.
After having investigated the rsync error 'file has vanished', I've discovered that tmutil doesn't create real snapshots:
15:50:34 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ tmutil snapshot /
Created local snapshot with date: 2020-12-21-155054
15:52:08 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ sudo mount_apfs -o rdonly -s "com.apple.TimeMachine.2020-12-21-155054.local" / /tmp/snap
Password:
15:52:30 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ cat /etc/profile
# System-wide .profile for sh(1)

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
    eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi
...
15:53:20 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ vi /etc/profile

  <File is changed>

15:58:42 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ cat /tmp/snap/etc/profile
# System-wide .profile for sh(1)
#             <====
# TEST CHANGE <====
if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
...

As you can see, all changes are reflected in the mounted snapshot. I've also tried file additions and deletions.
I think the problem is that Catalina has started to split the whole file system into a read-only system volume plus a data volume (plus maybe something else?):
16:07:33 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ df -h
Filesystem                                                   Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s6                                                466Gi   11Gi  176Gi     6%  488281 4881964599    0%   /
devfs                                                       197Ki  197Ki    0Bi   100%     682          0  100%   /dev
/dev/disk1s5                                                466Gi  276Gi  176Gi    62% 2492125 4879960755    0%   /System/Volumes/Data
/dev/disk1s4                                                466Gi  2.0Gi  176Gi     2%       2 4882452878    0%   /private/var/vm
/dev/disk1s1                                                466Gi  804Ki  176Gi     1%      88 4882452792    0%   /Volumes/Macintosh HD - Data
map auto_home                                                 0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%       0          0  100%   /System/Volumes/Data/home
map -fstab                                                    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%       0          0  100%   /System/Volumes/Data/Network/Servers
/dev/disk3s1                                                 25Gi   com.apple.TimeMachine.2020-12-21-155054.local@/dev/disk1s6  466Gi   11Gi  176Gi     6%  488281 4881964599    0%   /private/tmp/snap
16:07:35 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$

I could try to mount the more specific file systems, but the problem is I want to make the whole / visible to rsync, to perform a system backup. Is there a way?


texts: Can scale be set when printing PDFs from mobile Safari to a Mac with Printopia?

texts:
I'm on Mavericks 10.9.1, Safari 7.0.1. There are many occasions when I need to print PDFs to my networked printer remotely (i.e., From my iPad via Printopia) and they never print in the correct scale - always too large. I am using an HP DeskJet 3050 printer.

Please see the attached print dialogs - Safari and Preview. When I'm sitting at my laptop, I can use Preview and choose to scale properly. But Safari never scales properly, and even when I choose to have it scale, it doesn't do it right.

How can I have the iPad print at a set scale when printing remotely through Printopia?


texts: icloud notes not fully loading on ios 8.1, OSX Yosemite & icloud.com

texts:
I'm about to upgrade my Mac OS X to Yosemite version 10.10.1, but since its broken on icloud.com and iOS 8.1, I'm asking this question.

I have a critical Notes page in my iCloud account which is there, at least on my iPad which does not have 8.1 installed, which I was trying to access on my macbook via the Notes application and icloud.com. Neither are showing this note.

What could be the problem? I've already synced by Google accounts too, on the OSX Notes at least.


texts: Replace iSight camera on MacBook Air late 2010 (A1369)

texts: My MacBook got a small water damage some time ago. Luckily everything still works without any problems except the iSight camera, which is no longer detected. I reinstalled Mac OS X a couple of times since, so I'm sure it's not a software issue. Since a replacement looks pretty cheap and I have all the tools to open up my MacBook, I was wondering, if there are any guides on how to replace the camera. I googled a lot and also checked on Youtube, but could not find anything suitable. How hard would such a replacement be? Can I make sure it's the camera and not some other hardware issue before I try to replace it? On the other hand how much would it cost to have the camera replaced by Apple?


texts: How do I set environment variables on OS X?

texts:
I have always difficulties setting the Environment variables in OS X like JAVA_HOME, M2_HOME or PATH. How to set these on OS X Mavericks?

I did some research but the answers I've found didn't really help me yet:

export JAVA_HOME=/... (But it seems that the changes are temporary, just for one terminal session.)
setenv JAVA_HOME=/... (But command not found.)
Open .profile and write the variables inside to make the changes permanent- (.profile does not exist).
Open .bash_profile and write the variables inside to make the changes permanent- (.bash_profile does not exist).
vi ~/.bash_profile (Quite a challenge for somebody who doesn't know vi.)
Creating your own enrivonment.plist file.

Can somebody please walk me through the steps to get that to work on OS X Mavericks, assuming no Unix knowhow?


texts: WiFi Not staying connected after sleep-wake

texts:
Background
I am having keychain issues since upgrading to El Capitan, Described below. Also working with Apple support since 2 weeks and i have no hope for a solution
OS X El Capitan keychain login cannot be found to store

Issue
I close the lid on my computer and then when i open it it loses the connectivity to WiFi and i have to connect it every time

After connecting i get a message as below

Meaning that it can't save the password or something and then i am back to square one where after coming out of standby i'll have to reconnect again

Question
Is there any way to have my wifi stay connected without relying on Keychain. Meaning is keychain the only way for it to save my password or save my connection

Please let me know if more clarification is required


texts: 2018 MacBook Pro + LG 4k display = no 60hz

texts:
I've got 2018 MacBook Pro 15" (Radeon Pro 560X), which I'm connecting to external LG 4K display (27UD69P-W) via Satechi Type-C to HDMI Adapter (says 4K/60hz on the box), but the display is running 30hz.

How do I make it do 60hz?

Thank you!


texts: how to do screen+audio recording when mac is muted?

texts:
I want to record a video+audio on hangout (not sure if on the web or on an app) while i'm in another meeting.

I saw this tutorial using quicktime:
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/4587/use-quicktime-player-to-capture-web-video-and-audio/

However it won't record audio when my Mac is muted.

How can record audio as well without actually hearing it when played on my Mac?


texts: What affects the order of applications in Lauchpad?

texts: When opening Launchpad I've noticed that every page has different amount of applications laid out. Also, they doesn't seem to be ordered by any criteria (name, usage frequency or size). What are the sorting parameters for applications in Launchpad?


texts:
I just erased a newly purchased external USB disk using the Disk Utility program and set it to use the file system APFS Encrypted. I entered a strong password and the whole process took about a minute, then the device was supposedly encrypted and ready for use.

I noted that APFS encryption uses AES-128 which seems good, but the fact that the formatting only took a minute seems weird. Using encryption software like TrueCrypt, to safely prepare a new device takes hours, even days, just to fill the disk with random data before any valuable data is saved onto the device. For this reason, I am concerned that my APFS encrypted device is not secure enough.

Are my concerns legitimate or have I misunderstood something here?


texts: Is it possible to install macOS onto external SSD on a Mac running Ubuntu?

texts:
Currently I am running only Ubuntu on my MacBook Air. Many have suggested I reinstall or install macOS on an external drive in case I ever need to troubleshoot, or in case something goes wrong. How can I install macOS on an external SSD from Ubuntu itself? Is this possible or do I need to use a friend's Mac?

In case Ubuntu didn't start up or break for whatever reason, would it be as simple as plugging in the SSD with the macOS and then pressing Option (Or optionally Alt) to boot from the SSD?


texts: Copy contents of Numbers file on OS X El Capitan

texts:
When I ran OS X Yosemite, I worked on a .numbers file. Just recently, I needed to acces the contents of that file. However, the file opens only in Preview, and the Numbers app appears to be a paid one. I don't remember Numbers being a paid app in the last release of OS X.

How can I open that file without paying for the Numbers app? I really just need to copy the contents?


texts: I want to hold a key (1), and for it to repeat every 0.5 seconds until I release it using 'Automator' or 'AppleScript'?

texts:
When I was on Windows, I used AutoHotKey to allow me to hold down the "1" key, and for it to simulate pressing it every 0.5 seconds until I let go.
I managed to do something in Automator (or AppleScript) on my old Mac to give me the same functionality, however I forgot to write down how I did it.
I am now on a new Mac and cannot fathom how I did it (Google doesn't really help).
Any suggestions?


texts: New Photos App on Yosemite Isn't Syncing Smart Albums to my iPhone or iPad

texts: All my photos transferred just fine from iPhoto to Photos. My albums (smart and regular) are also all there too. I'm using iCloud to sync my library to my iPhone and my iPad and at first it removed all my photos from both devices and then re-downloaded them. So now all of the photos are on my devices but when I go to albums on my iPhone or iPad there are only the regular Albums and none of the Smart Albums I have on my Macbook Pro. Does anyone know how to fix this?


texts: Over 550 processes shown in Activity Monitor

texts: I'm running High Sierra on my older iMac. I opened Activity Monitor and clicked on the Memory tab to temporarily monitor the Memory Pressure. The memory pressure was fine but I noticed Activity Monitor listed over 550 processes. Is this a reasonable number for a single user machine? If not, what should I do about this?


texts: I want the ability to easily silence all text messages

texts:
TL;DR: Is there a way to toggle all message notifications easily?

While at work, I want the ability to by notified by phone calls, and reminders and event notifications, but I don't want to be interrupted by text messages. As soon as I get off work, I want to be notified by incoming text messages.


texts: How to get MacBook Pro(early 2011,13 inches) logic board schematic?

texts:
I destroyed my laptop i.e. Macbook pro early 2011-13 inches, last night. The computer works fine and has 50% charge left in the battery. But despite showing "Magsafe connected" on the screen it shows "Battery is not charging". So I went to my friend and got his charger, However, I got the same message again.

Thus, I thought its a problem with logic board. I youtubed and found something worthwhile.

At the moment I need Schematic of MacBook Pro Logic board to study the circuit and fix it.  How can I get this schematic?


texts: Time Machine Backup to Airport Time Capsule

texts: When I backup using time machine to my Time Capsule, does this use network bandwidth? I'm uncertain as I could see it creating some sort of ad-hoc network between the computer and the disc to do the back up but I'm completely unsure. Just don't want to be backing up hundreds of gigabytes over a network connection


texts: Stop Mavericks opening Safari in whichever screen I happen to be in?

texts:
I have a hotkey on my mouse that opens Safari, and since Mavericks, it'll open it in whichever monitor currently has focus (or the non-greyed-out menu bar).

I want it to always open in the same spot on one display, like it did with Mountain Lion. Is there a way I can have that happen?


texts: Time Machine restore newer Mac to older Mac

texts:
I will be replacing my current Mac with a newer model, at which point I'll restore my Time Machine backup to it, then wipe the old Mac. However, I considered that it might be a good idea to keep the old Mac in case something happens to the new Mac, but for that to be useful I would need to be able to restore the new Mac's Time Machine backup to the old Mac temporarily.

Is it possible to restore a newer model Mac's Time Machine backup to an older model Mac with the same OS version? What about different Mac OS versions?


texts: Is MacBook Pro warming during gaming normal?

texts:
I have a 2010 MacBook Pro MC371 (Core i5, GeForce 320M, 4Gb RAM).

When I launch a game either new one (i.e. Starcraft 2) or rather old (Unreal Tournament 2004, bootcamped) my MacBook gets rather warm, even hot in the top left corner, around the place where magsafe charger is plugged in. The temperature is more than 40C. The fact that confuses me is that this warming occures even when I play old games.

Is that OK?


texts: Is my graphics card the bottleneck slowing down the pressure sensitivity on my graphics tablet?

texts:
I have recently bought a pressure sensitive Huion 1060pro+ tablet. It's comparable to a medium-level Wacom.

On my Macbook Pro 15" 2009 the pressure sensitivity when working in Illustrator has a rather long lag, sometimes 15 seconds between pressing the pen down harder and the brush stroke becoming thicker. This is the same in both normal brush and blob brush, and Illustrator CC 2013 and CC 2015.

This delay does not happen on Photoshop, or on my girlfriend's Macbook Pro running Illustrator CS6. The hardware on my girlfriend's Macbook is comparable to mine, except for the graphics card - mine has a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB, hers has an Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB.

I'm thinking that perhaps my card can't process the changed shape of the vector quickly enough to provide an immediate response.

I'm interested in what you guys think, and if you have any suggestions for improving its performance short of buying a new laptop.


texts: Icons of m4v files missing after El Capitan update

texts:
After El Capitan update (from Yosemite) icons of m4v files (quicktime player icons) are missing. Instead of it they are blank.

Blank icon:

Must be:

Any suggestions how to fix?


texts: I manually manage music on an ipod touch. There is a playlist in the itunes library on my computer, and I would like to copy the files from the playlist to the ipod and remove their album names on the ipod only (I want to keep the album names on my computer). The purpose is to prevent these albums from showing up in the list of albums on the ipod. Is there a way to do this? Once the files are copied, itunes does not let me edit album information (the "Info..." menu option is greyed out when I select a song on the ipod). I know I could remove the album names on the computer, transfer the files, add the albums back, but this will a ton of extra work because there are hundreds of songs in the playlist and I would have to change each one manually.


texts: Photos app - moving pictures and re-associating

texts:
I have been organizing years of photos and photo albums into Apple's new Photos app. I recently picked up a new SSD to just handle my photo collection. I moved all of the photos to that drive. Now the file association in my Photos library is wrong for every photo. Is there a clean way to update all?

I've tried manually associating a few images, but that only takes care of that album. I have hundreds of albums.

It would be great if I could just find all references to the old path via SQL statement and replace. I'm sure it's not that simple though.

Any suggestions?

thanks


texts: El Capitan - Weather search in Spotlight not working

texts:
I've just upgraded my Mac to OS X El Capitan and typed:

weather in Sao Paulo, BR

I got nothing.

I'm actually in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Any ideas?


texts: In the last update, the Facebook app for iOS 8 has started adding squishing/swooshing nosies as you navigate or like posts. How do you disable these annoying noises? I have notifications set to off, sounds set to off for the app, but short of muting my entire phone, they keep existing. I don't want to have to mute everything, just the in-app noises for FB.


texts: Disable sticky keys only while certain applications have focus?

texts:
Is there any way to enable sticky keys in OS X but automatically disable them while in certain applications?

Modifying system files and heavy terminal use is ok.

Here's a screenshot of the preference pane containing Sticky keys for reference.

My specific case is virtualisation of Win 7 in Virtual Box on OSX 10.7.5


texts: Would a lost phone still show as offline if someone found it and erased it?

texts:
I lost my phone and it looks like it was either turned off or died at 5:41pm. When I use Find My Phone, its says offline.

Is this because it's off or is it possible someone erased my phone? If someone erased my phone, would it still show up as offline, or would it disappear?

I'm trying to figure out if someone has my phone or if it is just misplaced.


texts: What keyboards can reliably be used to start up recovery or diagnostics mode on a Mac mini?

texts:
I have a Mac mini which is stalling during boot. I have been trying to boot it to recovery or diagnostics mode, but run into an unexpected problem.

The keyboard I'm currently using with it is a Corsair K95 Platinum RGB which includes a lighting controller. This means that the keyboard has a short startup time, only a few seconds, but enough that macOS apparently does not allow it enough time to start up between the USB initialization cycle and the deadline for detecting the startup key presses.

I then tried again by attaching a second keyboard, but again the system would not respond to startup keys; the documentation is silent on the behavior of startup keys when more than one keyboard is connected or on how priority is determined.

I was eventually able to get a startup key to working using an ancient keyboard, but I would not like to be stuck without a keyboard that cannot do this.

What are the requirements for a keyboard to be able to invoke macOS startup keys?


texts: Late 2011 MacBook Pro 15" broken graphics - want to use external monitor

texts:
I recently wanted to add a monitor to my late 2011 MacBook Pro, but I have issue with main graphic card (failed AMD GPU) that is connected to the HDMI port and the other graphic card doesn't seem to have any port I could plug into. Note I have verified the HDMI port is currently non-functional.

I'm thinking about alternatives:

Apple TV or AirPlay (is this still supported by newer monitors?)
USB/WiFi connection?

What would be the best option here? Except buying new MacBook Pro of course.

Current state of my MBP:

OS: High Sierra 10.13.6
it works fine until I have to reboot (below copy from the link to the forum what I do when MBP gets restarted)

Procedure I use:

1 - Boot Single User (press Command + S) at boot (If you have MacOS installed on your hard drive).

2 - If you have a blank HD, then use the USB stick/Pendrive with the MacOS installer (El Capitan, Sierra or HighSierra).

2.1 - Press Option key at boot, Position the mouse on the MacOS installer icon.

2.2 - Press Command + S and keep holding these two keys.

2.3 - Click the MacOS installer icon -> continue holding the Command + S keys until you finish the MacOS installer Single User boot .

Enter these commands (change gpu-power-prefs to Intel GPU and boot verbose):

nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00
nvram boot-args="-v"
reboot


texts: Pointing devices not properly recognized and won't left/right click after upgrade to Mountain Lion

texts:
Have loved my Magic Trackpad since it first came out. Since upgrading to Mountain Lion, the system fails to recognize the Trackpad after a reboot. I need to pull the batteries, reload them, and power the Trackpad on... then the Mac sees it. But even then, it won't accept any clicks, it just moves the cursor around. I also tried an old fashioned USB mouse... it needs to be unplugged and plugged back in, but like the Trackpad, that allows cursor movement, but it also won't accept clicks (which makes me believe it is not a Trackpad problem). The machine is a MacPro 3,1 dual quad-core (2008).

My workaround in the meantime is (I think) going to be to remove my wife's user account, then I don't need to click to choose the user. But it is extremely annoying.

Anyone else come across this and have a fix?


texts: Do new iPhones (iOS 13) support NFC in peer-to-peer mode?

texts:
Yesterday I did quite a googling about iPhone and NFC. Learned cool things like iOS 13 adding support for tag writing and background tag reading. And that there are 3 modes in NFC (read/write; peer-to-peer; card emulation).

All I wanted (before googling all of this) was simply to share an URL using NFC and I failed at that.

Since tag writing is now supported I thought that that was possible, but couldn’t find anything.

With iOS 13, does anyone know if it’s possible to exchange information (peer-to-peer mode) like an URL using NFC?


texts:
on my Lion Server I have noticed that the permissions for certain folders seem to be screwed up.

When I look at the Get Info for the folder I see strange things in the permissions section. There are many users with grey symbols with a question mark next to them. It says unknown next to them. When I unlock the permissions I try to delete them, but pressing the - button has no effect.

The problem is on the second hard drive, which I use for data. I also tried to repair the permissions from the recovery partition but it will only let me repair the permissions on the system hard drive.

How can I reset the permissions to a standard value? Or can I repair permissions on the secondary hard drive as well?

Thanks


texts: Does iPhoto copy all photos from Photo Stream, or just make references?

texts:
When using Photo Stream on the iPhone, you have access to the last 1,000 photos taken, or the last 30 days of photos (source). That same rule applies to all iOS devices, and beyond the 30-day window, no photos are actually saved to your device unless you specifically select and save them to your Camera Roll.

What about with a desktop or notebook system (e.g., iMac, MacBook Pro, etc.)? Are the photos only temporarily accessible through iCloud when you see them in iPhoto, or are they actually stored on your computer?


texts: Open another terminal from the current one

texts:
I am working on Terminal and attempt to create a New one with commands

$  open -a terminal

No feedbacks from the command

$ open -an terminal
The file ~/terminal does not exist.

How to accomplish it?


texts:
I was trying to update my iPhone with iOS 14.1
I was told that I didn't have enough storage left, I was very surprised since I'm using about 10 of my 128 gigabytes available
After investigation, it appears that the 114GB is used for "other system data", which seems absurd.
How to free up this space? (I guess most of it is irrelevant)


texts: How to read the technical specs for the iPhone 3G correctly

texts:
I saw people wrote these technical specifications in iPhone 3G (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_3G)

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
(850 900 1,800 1,900 MHz)
Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA 3.6
(850 1,900 2,100 MHz)

So how to read the above technical specification correctly (ie to clarify these info so that the customers can understand)?


texts: Does my Bootcamp partition, disappeared by Lion install, still exist?

texts:
I installed Lion on my macbook air, and noticed a couple of days later that my bootcamp partition was gone--rebooting with option key no longer showed the volume, and diskutil shows the following

ccaajj-mba:~ ccaajj$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         120.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS metta                  *120.2 GB   disk1

It's a 128GB SSD, so looks like my 20GB bootcamp partition is toast.

Any ideas? I'm wondering if the volume and data is still there but the partition map is hosed and just not showing it. Thanks in advance y'all!


texts:
I want to install an SSD in an iMac 2010. The thermal sensor has no place to install, and if I don't install it, fans will spin at maximum speed.

I read that I can disable the HDD thermal sensor by simply shorting the pins. Is that true?

edit: I shorted the pin and the iMac works great


texts: How do I get an AppleScript application to automatically run at login?

texts:
The script I have helps with my computers ability to edit videos. I only use my computer for editing. The script just activates a program that I have made. I want to be able open my computer after it has been shut down and get the program to open/run automatically.

I have tried to use the System Preferences' "open at log in" feature, but that doesn't work. Is there any other way?

The script I have is an application and the code is:

set appPath1 to path to resource "Opening 5.app"

tell application "Finder"
    open appPath1
end tell

When I double click the app, it opens up my program which changes the way FCPX renders, plays and saves videos.


texts: What to do if I sold my MacBook Air and didn't disable iCloud

texts:
I recently sold my MacBook Air, and I deauthorized iTunes, wiped the hard drive, and reinstalled snow leopard (the os version that came installed with the MBA).

I stumbled upon this shortly after, which made me very nervous since I didn't do it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5189

This is what I didn't do:

  Turn off Find My Mac and sign out of iCloud

  To turn off the iCloud service on your Mac:

  Choose System Preferences > iCloud. Deselect Find My Mac to disconnect
  your devices from iCloud. Click the Sign Out button on the left side.
  The system automatically removes iCloud data from all of your devices.

How nervous about this should I be? Also, is there anything I can do now that the computer is not in my possession?


texts: Can Resorcerer work in Snow Leopard in VMWare Fusion 6?

texts: Since Resorcerer (2.4.1) won't work at all in 10.7 and later, I tried it in a virtual machine running Snow Leopard Server 10.6.8 in VMWare Fusion 6.0.6.  But when I select a resource and click the Hex button, nothing happens. No error message, nothing in the Console log.  I tried nuking the Resorcerer preference file and increasing the RAM assigned to the VM.  Is there any way to get it to work?


texts: How do I get rid of "movies" taking up so much space?

texts: I have a MacBook Pro, and according to the info in About this Mac, about 67 GB of storage is "movies". I don't have any movies stored. What does this mean, and how do I free up the space? Also, how do I find out what is listed as "Other" so that I can clean up items stored there? Thanks!


texts: Changing the minimum pause length required before a voice command in Dragon Dictate 4

texts:
In Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12.5 professional on Windows 7 SP1 x64 Ultimate I can change  the minimum pause length required before a voice command in the option menu:

Surprisingly I can't find the setting in Dragon Dictate 4 on Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite). Did I miss something or is there really no way to change the minimum pause length required before a voice command?


texts: Browsing in Finder is extremely slow while fine in Terminal

texts:
I did Repair Disk Permissions, reindexing files for Spotlight, and remove cache folders but it's still broken. It takes 30 seconds to several minutes to files to show up in local, not remote, folders.

Also tried to boot in Safe Mode but it was the same there.

I've used this MacBook Air for 10 months and it wasn't a problem for the first 9.5 months. I can't figure out since when it's been broken and what's caused the problem.

I'm using MacBook Air (mid 2011) and OS X 10.8.2.

Do I need to reinstall the OS? I have Time Machine backups and I've heard that you can restore from Time Machine backups after reinstalling the OS, but what if that also restores the problem back?


texts: How can I get 256 colors on the default Terminal over SSH?

texts:
Lots of similar questions, but I can't quite seem to find anything that is an exact match.

I am using the default Terminal (in Yosemite) to SSH into a VM. The VM's terminal is set up to use TERM=xterm-256color properly, and 256 colors works locally on the VM with the same terminal settings, but the colors will not make it over the SSH connection. Does anyone have any idea what it takes to get Terminal to just treat the output as normal 256 color sequences?

All I want here is to figure out why 256-color escape codes are ignored in Terminal.app when they come over an SSH connection. And, of course, to get it to stop ignoring the escape sequences.

Possibly excessive info:

The VM is running windows 7, shell is bash on cygwin, ssh server is bitvise.

I'm looking at 3 cases -- locally on native OSX bash in Terminal.app, locally in the VM bash in MinTTY, and in the VM via SSH in Terminal.app.

infocmp xterm-256color produces identical results in all three cases, and tput colors reports 256 in all cases.

(tput setaf 200 && echo pink) > pink produces the identical results in all three cases:

$ hexdump -C pink
00000000  1b 5b 33 38 3b 35 3b 32  30 30 6d 70 69 6e 6b 0a  |.[38;5;200mpink.|
00000010

cat pink either in Terminal.app (locally, not SSHed out anywhere) or in MinTTY on the VM prints out the expected pink text. cat pink in Terminal.app while SSHed out to the VM produces default light gray text.

The SSH connection is configured with EscapeChar none, so data should come though binary clean (changing this setting made no difference).

The preferences in Terminal.app are set to report as xterm-256color, though I don't think that should make any difference.

Any ideas on what is eating the escape sequence to fail? I'm not using anything other than plain ol bash for shells, no screen or tmux (unless Terminal.app uses it automatically/internally).


texts: Is there an integrated system utility that will allow one to rapidly convert AMR files to MP3 in the shell on macOS?


texts: Can this model of MacBook Pro satisfy my scientific needs?

texts:
I've recently decided to buy a 13-inch MacBook Pro. Although this costs me a lot, first-time experiencing this machine could be very interesting for me. Its weight is the other reason that attracts me. However, I'm a little bit afraid of buying this machine.

One reason is its specs. I work with Python and Matlab in my daily work. My programming work is not very intensive and most of the time deals with satellite image processing. I also work with some satellite-image-processing pieces of software, such as ENVI, PCI Geomatica, etc. I don't know how much this laptop is powerful, especially its integrated GPU, to run these apps on Mac.

The other reason that causes me to not think of buying this laptop is its overheating problem. I saw some complaints about the overheating and annoying warmness on the right side of the laptop. Moreover, when it comes to intensive computing, this problem could be become more severe.

With regard to to the above descriptions, do you think buying this laptop can be suitable for me?

I have to add that my current Lenovo laptop has a core i5 CPU and a GT 720m GPU and so far I have had not any serious problem with it for my scientific work.


texts: Change all the .txt files to .md files in a certain folder

texts:
Is there a Terminal command or something like that to batch rename files in a certain folder? Basically I want to change all the files that have a .txt as a file type, and change it to .md (for markdown). Is this possible? I am comfortable using the Terminal, being a developer, so don't hold back on solutions. :)

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.


texts: I have a login item that I can't delete! It's a random Garageband audio file that I never put there myself. It opens in Quicktime every time I boot my Mac. Does anyone know how to get rid of it?


texts:
If I have understood correctly, iPhones use Wi-Fi points to locate themselves more quickly.

I was working in one location and my company has now moved to a different location. I guess they brought the Wi-Fi equipment with them. When I now open Google Maps, it locates me at the location where my company was before we moved. Even when I switch of my Wi-Fi, it seems to think I am at this other location. This is Extremely annoying.

Is there a way to fix this? Can I reset the cache or Wi-Fi location history or something like that?


texts: Bootcamp "Missing Operating System" on external drive

texts:
I've been using an external disk drive to use boot camp on my MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012). It's 1TB, so recently I added a partition to store extra files on it (350GB for boot camp, 650GB for storage). However now when I try to boot into my windows partition it says Missing Operating system. Here is some info about my disk drive: (VECTOTECHHS is the storage partition)

$ diskutil list disk2
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:               Windows_NTFS BOOTCAMP                378.0 GB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS VECTOTECHSS

$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk2
Disk: /dev/disk2    geometry: 124519/255/63 [2000409264 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         2 -  738321070] HPFS/QNX/AUX
*2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 738322432 - 1262084096] HFS+
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

Any help is appreciated. Thank you for your time!


texts: How to thin your local Time Machine Snapshots on macOS High Sierra

texts:
I have noticed that my extra space just suddenly disappears since upgrading to macOS High Sierra. For example, I have 170 GBs free in the morning and then by the afternoon I'm down to 56 GBs.

Then sometimes that shoots back up to 170 GBs. It's a little odd and rebooting sometimes works but sometimes doesn't.

I started looking into "local snapshots" that are created by Time Machine automatically. I assume these are locally stored snapshots that are created for efficiency of Time Machine. Maybe when it's not connected to the Time Machine disk so that it can still have a versioned backup. Not sure.

You can view your local snapshots like so:

$ tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-14-173102
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-14-212356
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-15-052254
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-15-084940
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-15-094508
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-15-121635

When I run tmutil in my Terminal I see a command called thinlocalsnapshots. What does that do and how do I use it?


texts: Is loading your desktop before login safe?

texts:
I came across an article explaining how to load your desktop before you login.

Does anyone know if this works in Lion?
Is there any reason I should avoid attempting it?

Load your desktop before login

Go to System Preferences → Users&Groups → Login Options to enable automatic login.
Then, copy and paste the following code into TextEdit.app:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.luomat.loginhook</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession</string>
                <string>-suspend</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

3. Go to Format → Make Plain Text and save the file as

    com.luomat.loginhook-2.plist

and put it in

    ~/Library/LaunchAgents

After rebooting your computer, you'll notice the login screen shows up, but when you log in, your desktop and all your startup apps will be loaded and ready to go.


texts: Photos app refusing to download even though I got free disk space

texts:
I've got the Photos library on an external SSD. The SSD is 512 GB with a real capacity of about 500 GB according to Finder. The Photo library is around 420 GB according to iCloud.
When there was about 15 GB free on the SSD, the library stopped syncing, complaining about too little local storage to sync. I saw some hints on disabling and re-enabling iCloud sync, but that did not help, now I am not able to re-enable sync. The error message I get is "Your full-resolution photos and videos stored in iCloud will not fit on this Mac."
It seems Photos refuses to fill my drive above some limit, which would make sense for the system disk, but this is an external disk specific to this purpose. Is there any way to tweak this so I can use all of the disk space I got?


texts: I just purchased an M1 MacBook Air that I would like to attach to an external display. When I do so, the video quality is pretty terrible. It almost looks like the the output is being slightly scaled. However, I've verified from my monitor's OSD that it is outputting to the correct resolution as well as from MacOS. There isn't any oversampling or other scaling effects from the monitor (it's outputting 1:1). Just as a sanity check, I took a screenshot and it outputs the correct resolution and looks beautiful on another computer attached to the same display. I've tried various output cables (USB-C to DP and HDMI) and this doesn't seem to have any effect. I've read elsewhere that there can be some colorspace issues on Dell monitors in particular, but this isn't a Dell monitor and it really doesn't appear to be the issue.


texts: Adding a third Airport Express causes dramatic network slow down

texts:
When TWO AirPort Express are on everything works as expected, strong and fast wifi everywhere, music streams fine. But when a THIRD AirPort Express is on, the wifi slows down to about 100k/s

This is independently from which of the three AirPort Express is turned off (so not a malfunction with a particular one) I have run wireless diagnostics which finds no problem.

Can anyone help, this is driving me mad.

Background

I have one AirPort Extreme serving as base station and three airport express (all latest model) serving as relay stations and to stream music in different zones, they are all connected by ethernet, the ethernet network has been checked and works fine.

I followed the Apple instructions and they are all setup as "create wireless network" with the exact same network name, in the airport utility app the three airport express appear underneath the airport extreme, wireless settings are on "automatic"

There is no other wifi routers, modems or printers in the building, but we are in the very center of the city and there are lots of wifi activity around.


texts: mac os photos does not sync with icloud / Restoring from icloud stuck / afraid that deletion of photos on mac does not affect icloud

texts:
I try to get my overlarge photos library under control (currently ~220 GB on my SSD).

I am running Catalina 10.15.2 on a 2014 Macbook Pro.

Therefore I deleted a lot of videos and photos. Mainly duplicates, screenshots and so on. But in the end I deleted some 2.000 items which took a couple of hours since I did it manually. I am sonewhat afraid to use duplicate finders. I tried that but found out that for example gemini2 also marked single photos as duplicates.

After I did that two nights ago I checked my icloud to see if the video/ photos had also been deleted there. But nothing happened there. All the duplicate videos are still there. Even now 2 days later nothing changed in the icloud?!

My photos app on mac os is configured like that:

My understanding ist that deleting a photo in mac os would remove it from my icloud and any of my other devices. Especially since each time I delete an item, photos gives me a warning that the item is going to removed from all devices.

My photos app shows me the message "Restoring from icloud ..." with a ~90% complete progress bar.

But this progress bar is stuck for the last ~30h or so.

After various restarts and so on I went into the Activity Monitor and canceled all processes connected to photos. Afterwards I restarted the Photos app again and it looked like this:

The "Restoring from icloud" process is not running and the numbers of videos/ pictures roughly the amount that it should be after I deleted all the duplicates.

After a couple of seconds later the "Restore from icloud" process is again running/ stuck.

My questions:

1) How can I get the sync process running again?

2) Could it be that the photos app is trying to retrieve the deleted photos/ videos from my icloud. The message "restore from icloud" and the higher numbers of vids/ pics seem to imply something like that. If so, how can I prevent that? I want to delete those dupes.


texts: Import CA certificate into Chrome via command line

texts: Is it possible to import a custom Certificate Authority (.crt) using Terminal or over SSH on macOS 10.13 High Sierra?


texts: Bluetooth headset "Play/Pause" button no longer works on Mac

texts:
I have a Beats Solo Pro Bluetooth headset. The headset has three buttons: Play/pause, Volume up and Volume down.
When using the headset with my MacBook Pro, I have been able to pause iTunes/Podcasts (or basically anything playing) by pressing the button on my headset.
Recently this stopped working. Pressing the headset's play/pause button does nothing. The volume buttons still work.
What I have tried:

Resetting and reconnecting the headset
Using the headset with my iPhone - in this case, Play/pause works as expected
Using another headset (AirPods) with my Mac, I'm able to play/pause by tapping the right airpod, as expected
The Play/pause button on my (Bluetooth) keyboard also works as expected.

What else can I try?


texts:
There are 2 VMs running on VMWare on a remote server. For instance: devops-01 and devops-02. Both of them have SSH access enabled.
To access to the first one I do: ssh dev@devops-01. For the other one: ssh dev@192.168.80.y (y sometimes changes).

Normally I only used devops-01 and rarely the other one. Today, it all changed. Ideally I would like to access both VMs like this: ssh dev@devops-<ID>. But, I'm sure that involves calling the server guy and he's on vacations. So, I thought in "switching" my VMs settings.

I copied all the settings from System Preferes > Network > Ethernet from the devops-01 and pasted them to the devops-02 corresponding settings. (IP, Subnet Mask, Router, DNS Server, Search Domains are the same).
I also went to System Preferences > Sharing and edited the computer name on devops-02. (So now, it says devops-01).
Then, I stoped the old devops-01 VM. And now, I have the old devops-02 VM running, supplanting devops-01. BUT ping devops-01says that there is no route to it. Of course it works fine using the ip. But, that's not my intention.

What am I doing wrong?


texts: How do I set the static library path in OS X Lion?

texts:
Instead of typing :

g++ functions.cpp  /opt/local/lib/libhdf5.a /opt/local/lib/libsiloh5.a  /opt/local/lib/libz.a

I would prefer to type:

g++ functions.cpp  -lhdf5 -lsiloh5 -lz

I think that I need to add /opt/local/lib (Macports lib install location) to my library path. I have tried:

export LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/local/lib"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/local/lib"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATHS="/opt/local/lib"

None work


texts:
I'm getting a permission denied when attempting to create or mount at /Volumes on my mac. I'm an admin and I can do both of those things with sudo, but I don't understand why I have to use sudo on this mac but not on other macs in my office.

/Volumes
> mkdir foo
mkdir: foo: Permission denied

My thoughts are to use chown/chmod but I'm hesitant to do so without asking first.

/Volumes
> ll
total 8
drwxr-xr-x@  4 root      admin   136B Apr 22 13:40 .
drwxr-xr-x  33 root      wheel   1.2K Mar 30 22:23 ..
drwxr-xr-x@ 11 medialab  staff   442B Apr 14 15:34 06b_SD_Video_BK
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root      admin     1B Apr 18 10:48 Macintosh_HD -> /

We mount LTO tapes to this machine and can currently only do so by using sudo. This was not always the case and I don't know why sudo is suddenly being required.

How do I go about changing the permissions on /Volumes?


texts: my iPhone keeps losing wifi connection. Why is this?

texts: My laptop connects to my Wifi but my iPhone does not. I connect my macbook air from the basement to the wifi and i get all 3 bars, but then i connect my iPhone from same place in the basement, the iPhone keeps losing the wifi.i had an iphone 4 before so I thought it was just the Antennas of the iPhone 4 that was weak. Now I have the iPhone 6 plus and its the same issue. what do you think is the problem? is it my router? i have a netgear WNR1000v2 and it is upstairs, about 50-60 ft away from my room in the basement.


texts:
I'm a Windows software developer interested in reading the .quizPack file format. It is designed for Apple iQuiz software, and contains text quizzes for iPod. The text file format, unpacked from quizPack, "trivia.txt" is fully documented here. But how to unpack these files?

I cannot find any specification of this format on Apple website or elsewhere.

Here is a downloadable example of quizPack file.

This format can be created, for example, by iQuizMaker software. iTunes can read these files and export them to iPod as "unpacked" quizzes.


texts: How to figure out how a process auto started itself after login?

texts:
(I added an Update in the end.)

My related questions:
How to delete hidden login iterms from backgrounditems.btm?
A launchd job without plist file, how does that work and how to find what job triggers it?
Even though the above questions are related, but they are not the same to this question.

I am running MacOS Big Sur.
I found out there were many apps downloaded online will auto start themselves somehow. I am having really a hard time to trace how they auto started.
Take an example, com.xunlei.Thunder.ThunderHelper is always started automatically after the system starts.
So far, I found out there were two things which are related to this process autostart.
One is from launchd job (no .plist file):
$ launchctl list | grep -i thunder
405 0   com.xunlei.Thunder.ThunderHelper

$ launchctl print gui/$(id -u)/com.xunlei.Thunder.ThunderHelper
...
    path = (submitted by otherbsd.330)
    program identifier = com.xunlei.Thunder.ThunderHelper
    parent bundle identifier = com.xunlei.Thunder
...

One is a hidden login iterm from $HOME/Library/Application Support/com.apple.backgroundtaskmanagementagent/backgrounditems.btm file. NOTE: this login iterm is NOT shown in System Preferences. I found it by using a python script mentioned in my another question in detail python3 ./bgiparser.py -f backgrounditems.btm -c.
I do NOT find anything related to thunder process in the following directories:
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
~/Library/LaunchAgents/
/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/System/Library/LaunchAgents
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons

I don't start thunder app by myself.
NOW, in order to stop it auto starts, I did the following
launchctl stop com.xunlei.Thunder.ThunderHelper
launchctl remove com.xunlei.Thunder.ThunderHelper
kill -9 405
rm "$HOME/Library/Application Support/com.apple.backgroundtaskmanagementagent/backgrounditems.btm"

Note again, I don't start thunder app by myself.
Now, I shutdown the MacOS system and unplug the power cable, plug the power cabe, start MacOS system.
Magically, the thunder helper app starts it automatically again. It created a running launchd job again. It created a hidden login iterm again in a new backgrounditems.btm file.
I am very confused and how does it do this?
If I open the app manually and then it creates laucnhd job and login iterm, I am fine with it. BUT I don't start the app at all. I have removed the login iterm file. I have stopped its related process.
Can anyone help me finding how this program auto starts itself?
Thank you very much.
PS:
I know there are the following file and directory:
/Applications/Thunder.app/Contents/Library/LaunchServices/com.xunlei.Thunder.HelperTool

/Applications/Thunder.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/ThunderHelper.app/

I know I could remove them (although I haven't tried it).
But I want to figure out how they are started automatically instead of removing them. Cheers.
Update
I found a scary truth on this issue.
After killing/remove any running thunder processes (inlcuding rm backgrounditems.btm).
I moved Thunder.app to other directory with the following command:
$ mkdir -p $HOME/tmp/thunder_tmp/
$ mv /Applications/Thunder.app $HOME/tmp/thunder_tmp/

And then restart macos system. The most weird thing happened. Thunder helper app started automatically from the new path and login iterms with the new path added to new backgrounditems.btm file:
# Part of decoded backgrounditems.btm file:
{
    "name": "ThunderHelper.app",
    "path": "/Users/myuser/tmp/thunder_tmp/Thunder.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/ThunderHelper.app"
},

It seems MacOS searches my entire harddrive to find all helper app and starts them automatically and added them as a hidden iterm to login iterms automatically too. (might not be true)
If this is true, it will be very scary!
How can I stop MacOS doing this scary thing? Why does it search my entire drive everytime at startup and try to find a helper app to start and add to login iterms too? It's really unbelievable.


texts:
I really like my HomePod, but I never want to use it as a speakerphone.

When I'm on a call on an iOS device in my house, and tap the () icon to turn on speakerphone, the presence of the HomePod makes me navigate a menu instead of just toggling the speaker phone.

Is there a setting somewhere that'll let me disable this HomePod feature?


texts: look up a word in Dictionary.app in Terminal

texts:
Is there a bash or applescript to look up a word in /Applications/Dictionary.app from a Terminal window ?

open -a /Applications/Dictionary.app/ --args word

ignores --args, says "type a word to look up"

Mac Dictionary improvements suggests ⌃ Control ⌘ Command D however I'm looking to launch the full app, not just the small popover.


texts: Trackpad multi touch pinch gesture not working

texts:
I just bought a 21.5 inch iMac (latest macOS), I was using a macbook and got used to the trackpad and multitouch gestures, so I bought one (Magic trackpad 2) for desktop stuff as well. Its my third day with it and the pinch to zoom multitouch gesture stops working for a while, and then if I restart the computer or leave it, when it comes back from sleep It may be working fine. I've tested in all possible applications, such as:

Keynote
Photoshop
Preview

And nothing, the other multitouch gestures such as the one for scrolling, show apps, dashboards, three finger move, they all work as usual, I have to restart the computer to see if the pinch zoom will work. Im really upset because my macbook is from 2009 with OSX Yosemite and all the trackpad gestures work like a charm, never had this type of issue.

I would be happy if someone knows a solution for this. Thanks.


texts: View number of items in a folder in Icon view

texts:
In Downloads folder I see that the number of items present in a folder is displayed under the folder name in Icon view.

But I am unable to view such detail in Desktop, Documents, etc folders. How can I get that info to be always displayed in the Icon view?

I checked Folder actions but I do not find any difference (Finder folder icon showing items count when empty)


texts: How do I create nested lists in Reminders?

texts: I want to use Reminders.app but I also want a little more structure through nested lists. How do I created nested lists with Reminders.app on iOS or OS X?


texts: Macbook Pro 13 2017 suddenly shutdown then stuck at apple logo

texts:
I have a Macbook Pro 13-inch, 2017 model, and an original OS. I'm currently using Mojave. I updated two weeks ago and everything seems running smoothly. But last night, my Macbook just suddenly shuts down and it was stuck on apple logo with no loading or progress bar. First, I waited for 10 minutes when I rebooted. Then I noticed that my Macbook is hot. So I turned it off. Then I tried the following methods when rebooting:

Used CMD + R, but it doesn't go to recovery mode.
Used CMD + Option + R, nothing happens after recovery using internet.
Used Shift to enter safe mode, it doesn't go to safe mode.
Used CMD + Option + P + R, it doesn't fix anything. Still stuck at apple logo.
Used CMD + S, I just showed a verbose mode and the line said "End RandomSeed"
Used CMD + V, the last line prompted "End RandomSeed" and then freezes.
Pressed D, but nothing was seen defective in hardware.

Tried every solution using the combination keys, but nothing worked. I need your help in fixing this. What are the possible solutions in my problem?


texts: iPhone 4 cannot restore to iOS 5 in DFU mode

texts:
I download the iOS 5 firmware file for my iPhone 4 (GSM): iPhone3,1_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw. I put my iPhone in DFU mode and Alt+Clicked the Restore button in iTunes. I then selected the .ipsw that I downloaded and then it extracts the software and gives me the following message:

I just can't seem to upgrade the phone, any ideas anyone?


texts: Using external microphone disables internal speaker

texts:
I have a Mid-2015 Macbook Pro, which has the combined headphone/microphone jack.

I normally use it in clamshell mode, and in the past some people have had a hard time hearing me if I try to use the built-in microphone, so I got an external microphone. I was just testing it, and discovered that when I plug it in, the Mac thinks I also have headphones plugged in, and disables the internal speaker.

When I go into Sound Preferences, "Internal Speakers" is replaced with "Headphones" whenever I plug in the microphone. I guess it thinks my microphone is actually a headset with both microphone and headphones.

Is there any way to disabuse it of this notion, and enable the internal speaker while using the external mic?


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  iPad PDF Reader with annotation support?

I'm considering purchasing a PDF annotation app for the iPad; mostly something that allows me to highlight, add handwritten and typed notes, comments, etc.

I have three closely-related questions:

Does anybody know of a recent review of PDF annotation tools for the iPad / iPad 2?
Alternatively, does anybody have/know of a list of pros-and-cons of the different PDF annotation tools for the iPad?
Does Adobe have any official application for the iPad? If not, is there are a reason why they don't?

Thanks!


texts: What user details are shared with publishers through Apple News?

texts: Apple says that “News seamlessly delivers the articles you want to read in a beautiful and uncluttered format, while respecting your privacy, because Apple doesn’t share your personal data,”. What user data is shared with publishers. It is the same data that iAd shares?


texts:
After the Mountain Lion install I'm trying to now go Flash free. Really, really 100% Flash free. This is fine for 99% of content out that I access, but sadly there are some videos that I still cannot get to without Flash.

I do know about the popular post by Gruber, however I'm not interested in installing Chrome because (1) I hate the heavy handed way Google forces itself into your system with its hidden daemons etc. and (2) you're still installing a Flash client on your system. I don't want a Flash client, period.

I see that such solutions do exist for iOS. To name a few:

iSwifter
Cloud Browse
Skyfire

But sadly no such options appear to exist on the Mac :( In fact iSwifter was promised to the Mac earlier but there hasn't been a peep about this since.

What I'm looking for is some kind of web-based service either with a native Mac client app or simply a webapp that would:

Allow me to render the entire site server-side in Flash and send me the video feed in some decent app or webapp (ala iSwifter), or
Have some server side scraper of the swf file that finds the reference to the actual .mp4 and passes that along to you (ala Skyfire).

So far the closest thing I've found to this is ClipConverter, but sadly its supported list of services, though decent, is nowhere near extensive enough to cover all the obscure websites that I use which all roll their own crappy swf wrapper around the mp4/flv content.

Examples

Some people are suggesting client-side-only approaches like ClickToFlash. These are good but the problem is that any particular Flash based video service / wrapper needs to be explicitly supported by it so by definition cannot catch 100% of all content, only a dedicated server-based Flash renderer like iSwifter can do that. Here are some concrete example videos that require Flash which most solutions don't handle:

http://www.destructoid.com/let-s-get-physical-with-quantum-conundrum-232175.phtml
http://www.gamespot.com/deadlight-2012/videos/video-review-deadlight-6389587/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6083-Inversion (this one has an HTML5 link but you need to pay to get in. That's plain wrong)
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi771138841/

Before answering, you can test your solution with the above links. Thanks!


texts: Is it possible to go from pre-installed Mavericks to Mountain Lion on my new Macbook Pro?

texts:
I just brought a brand new MacBook Pro (mid-2012) and it came with Mavericks installed on it. The previous Mac I had before I got this one had Mountain Lion and it ran my pro tools sufficiently but now I have a better Mac and it's giving me problems: I can't go 2 minutes without it glitching, popping and distorting and having to restart it.

I need Mountain Lion again — is it possible to go from Mavericks to Mountain Lion?


texts:
I have noticed that many developers chose to distribute their apps inside DMGs, versus zips or other archive formats. DMGs take more time to make, and need to be verified and mounted whereas archives can be unarchived and ready to go. Also, you have to unmount a disk image before deleting it.

What are the benefits of distributing applications via DMG?


texts:
I can't find any detailed guide on how to setup a client OpenAFS on Mac OS X.

I downloaded OpenAFS 1.5.78 from OpenAFS.org but I can't make it works.

I read that a panel for the system preferences should be installed, but I don't see anything.

My goal is not configure a server but just to connect to a cell as a client.

Any help would be very welcome.


texts: Launchctl says plist is invalid, plutil says it's OK

texts:
I'm trying to have launchd run a shell script when I join a new WiFi network. I've created this plist file (closely based on this SuperUser answer) at /Users/myname/Library/LaunchAgents/my.networkChangeListener.plist:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" \
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>my.networkChangeListener</string>
  <key>LowPriorityIO</key>
  <true/>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
<string>/Users/myname/bin/networkChangeListener/onNetworkChange.sh</string>
  </array>
  <key>WatchPaths</key>
  <array>
    <string>/etc/resolv.conf</string>
    <string>/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist</string>
    <string>/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

My user is the owner of the plist, and the group is "staff".
When I try to load the file by running launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my.networkChangeListener.plist, I get an error saying "Invalid property list".
However, when I run plutil ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my.networkChangeListener.plist, it returns "OK"
What is the problem with my plist file? Is is something specific to launchd? I'm completely at a dead end for how to debug this.


texts: What these kernel panic logs relating to GPU Reset mean?

texts:
I'm having a really annoying issue and I would like to know what's causing it (Xcode triggers it).

When I'm using Xcode and the storyboard editor, selecting or moving anything will occasionally cause a complete system failure or freeze. Not 10 minutes ago I was trying to set the class for a UIView whilst playing some music and I suddenly heard a loud buzzing sound through my headphones and my screen just went black. The computer rebooted and showed the kernel panic screen.

This is the first time it completely crashed the system as it usually just completely locks up and requires a force restart.

I check the logs and I have these files matching the day of the crash:

Kernel_2018-01-25-033831_Noahs-MacBook-Pro.gpuRestart: https://pastebin.com/vNxQAbWH
Kernel_2018-01-25-033918_Noahs-MacBook-Pro.panic: https://pastebin.com/inMsqHFp

I have created pastes on pastebin for these files as they contain quite a bit of information and would flood this post.

It seems to be GPU related, I don't think it's a hardware issue as I've been pushing this GPU pretty hard and never have any issues with it other than Xcode.

I have filed a bug report with Apple about this but I'm just wondering if anyone can figure out if it's a user kext or something to make sure it's not a problem on my end.

I have a 2017 MacBook Pro (14,3) with the Radeon Pro 560 and High Sierra 10.13.2.


texts: NTFS drive isn't writable even after installing Fuse

texts:
I have installed fuse using steps which are linked below in an article. Each and every step was successful but after mounting my WD external drive, still it was not writable. Everywhere I found same steps. I am currently using macOS high Sierra 10.13.4 on my MacBook Pro.
After installing Paragon for WD drives only, it worked for my WD drive but FUSE still does not support or come into action as I plug my another Sony's 1 TB external hard drive.
Is there any problem with FUSE?

Link to install FUSE & ntfs-3g


texts:
My PC is always recently showing low disk space despite me eliminating files.  I ran Tree size and discovered large volume from iTunes sync backup.  Before deleting in iTunes>preference, May I just copy/paste this directory

  C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

to another drive first and in case I need to restore, I can copy it back to that directory and restore in iTunes?  Thank you for your answer.


texts: The Dock was moved to the right side of the screen but still auto displays when cursor on bottom?

texts:
Using this tip from basic Google Search I was able to move the Dock to the right side:

The Dock does show only on the right side now.  However it also displays (auto-unhides) when the mouse/cursor travels to the bottom of the screen.

It is distracting when interacting with full length windows. Can that behavior be disabled?  I am on Sierra.


texts: finder does not show iPhone backups Catalina

texts:
I want to restore my iPhone from a backup I did a few days ago. However, Finder does not show my Backups even though the correct backup folders are listet under /Users/username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/.

Finder tells me that there are no known backups and when I click on "manage backups", an empty list appears.

I had that problem in macOS 10.15.3 and it appears in 10.15.4 as well. I restarted my phone and even restored it completely using Finder. I upgraded to iOS 13.4, nothing changed.

I also tried moving the backup folders to a different location and then moved it to /Users/username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ again.

The iPhone had a battery and speaker replacement, but it is the same device that I made a backup from before the replacement.


texts: How do I get this Mac G5 up and running ? (boot to OS)

texts:
A local Goodwill sells Apple hardware at ridiculously low prices, great for a tinkerer like me. I'd missed the Mac mini on sale so I grabbed this Mac Pro looking device thinking it would be an intel running unit. The $25 price tag and wire tie kept me from opening. the cover to confirm and they don''t offer refunds.
When I opened it at home the plastic cover inside had the great big G5 on it and my heart sank. No hard drive or memory. The little sticker started off showing it as a single 1.6. DDR3 or DDR2 or DDr4 memory didn't seem to fit, but I did shoehorn two sticks of 2gb into two slots. There is a 500gb drive attached inside without rails. Both are to test. There is what seems to be t he optical drive still in the front bay.
I haven't figured how to open the  'apparent' optical drive else I'd searched for an old Apple Mac OS dvd to try. Also I'd have. thought I'd get other than a black screen when turning it on.
What do I need to do to just get it booting into an OS ?


texts: How to see what apps you have bought after doing a clean install

texts:
How can I get my apps back after a clean install if I bought all of them directly on my iDevice and never bothered to sync them to my computer?

Background: I lost all of my apps on my ipad when I updated (10/22/11) they were all gone.


texts:
Is there a way to (temporarily) view another user's file on OS X other than to change the permissions of the file? I'd like the OS to ask for the user name/password.

I guess what I'm looking for is something like Window's idea of running Windows Explorer as another user (ideally at file/directory level only). The ssh idea fails because the Finder cannot recognize the permission granted.

An absolute requirement is not to move the user's files.


texts: Can't load boot camp Windows 7 after resizing Mac partition

texts:
Running Lion with Windows 7 boot camped, I modified my Mac OS X partition and reduced its size by 100 GB. I formatted the new 100Gb to FAT 32.

When I restarted my computer, I received the "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" error. I restarted and logged into Lion and the Startup Disk utility still recognized the boot camp install but I still couldn't restart into Windows. I was still able to see the content of the files in the Boot Camp partition via Finder. I tried running from Windows 7 DVD and repairing, but Windows repair didn't recognize any installs.

In the Disk Utility, I deleted the new partition I created (100gb). After deleting it, I noticed the boot camp partition's name changed to disk0s4 and was marked as FAT 32 format. Now I can't look at the boot camp files in finder and startup disk utility isn't recognizing the boot camp partition.

How can I fix the boot camp boot loader, or ay least access my files from lion?

Update: The default boot is going to the Windows partition but it shows the "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" error. I assume that means the partition is still good?

Update 2: I ran Windows 7 install via a DVD and got to the point where it shows you a list of drives/partitions available. It showed me the boot camp partition (I recognized it by the partition size, although it was about 15 GB short of what I expected) as being "RAW" format with all space being empty. sad face


texts: Macintosh HD drive listing as Recovery Partition and it is not available to boot

texts:
I just wanted to merge 2 NTFS drives because I want to increase size of my BootCamp partition. But now, I can't boot to macOS. I can see it when I boot to Windows; its files and everything ok, but somewhy it is listed as Macintosh HD (D:) and my Recovery Partition is listed as Recovery HD (E:).

When I open Startup Menu, only my Bootcamp and Recovery partitions are avaible to select, no Macintosh HD.

Here is my Disk Management screen from Windows. My Macintosh HD (371GB) drive listed as "Recovery Partition"

How can I repair my main disk...


texts: Can Apple TV stream video from an external server using SMB or FTP protocol with external subtitles?

texts:
I am seriously considering moving from my Android TV-based player to Apple TV player, because my current solution fails completely on playing / streaming videos from from an external server through SMB or FTP protocol with external subtitles.

Some software players (i.e. VLC) can browse network shares (some can't), but all of them fails on opening external subtitles, i.e. stored in the .srt or .txt file with exactly the same filename as corresponding video file. It is only possible to display subtitles, if they are embedded into video files that supports embedded subtitles (i.e. MKV) or subtitles downloaded from OpenSubtitles.org.

This is especially weird, because happens only on SMB / FTP protocol. When using exactly the same player on local disk, everything works just like a charm.

I'd like to ask how does it work in case of Apple TV?

While searching the Internet, I managed to learn that Apple TV can play content from local network (don't know, if using SMB or FTP protocol), using VLC or some other players. But I can't find any certain, confirmed information about fetching subtitles from. srt, .txt etc. files stored in exactly the same source and using exactly the same protocol (local share using SMB or external share using FTP) as used for fetching main video file.

Can anyone shed some light on this problem? Thank you.


texts: What should I do about iCloud if I have a Mac with OS X 10.10 Yosemite and an iPhone 4 with iOS 7?

texts:
I have an iPhone 4, and that's not likely to change any time soon (unless I break it). Being a 4, it can only use iOS 7; I can't install iOS 8 on it.

On my Mac, I've installed OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Yosemite offered to upgrade to iCloud Drive, BUT: I don't have iOS 8, so my iPhone wouldn't be able to use files in iCloud anymore, right? ...the phone wouldn't be able to use iCloud Drive, right? And Yosemite needs iCloud Drive, so until I upgrade to iCloud Drive, my Mac can't use files in iCloud anymore, right? ...Yosemite can't use the old system?

So what should I do? Do I have to choose to use iCloud with either my Mac or my iPhone? Should I go back to Mavericks? Is there something I'm missing, or is there any other way?


texts:
Real quick, I own a Macbook Pro 2010.

I recently purchased a new Razer Naga mouse, and aside from using it for gaming, I've been adding various keyboard shortcuts into my mouse's side buttons. Whenever I try using the buttons to control my Macbook's volume and for controlling music play, I'm noticing that the buttons register as F7 - F12 rather than what I'm intending.

I was wondering, would anyone happen to know the exact keyboard commands in order to control the volume and music playing?


texts: Why is my iPhone 4S's home button not responding from home screen?

texts: My home button seems to be working okay to move out of apps etc, and double tapping brings up the expected menu, but on the home page, a single tap no longer swaps to the search interface, and when modifying app positions, clicking home no longer stops the apps 'shaking' - is there any way to rectify this?


texts: This morning I update my iPad 2 to iOS 7 and when I went to do a call on Skype, they are not hearing me. Is there something wrong with the settings or is it something else?


texts: When you set up your Apple ID when you first get your phone can you set up another once you have signed in on that account?


texts: How can I disable the tooltip showing up on my dock items on hover?


texts: Should I put macbook pro to sleep or it goes alone?

texts:
Before I go sleep, I use to put macbook pro to sleep. I mean, press apple menu, and then Sleep option in the menu.

But I noticed that if I stop to interact with the mac for a moment it gets dark. Is it going to sleep?


texts: Unable to run multiple monitors in Windows 10 Pro via Boot Camp

texts: Problem: I cannot run more than one external monitor (Dell 2415, 24") when running Windows 10 Pro in Boot Camp on my MacBook Pro. Also unable to run a bluetooth mouse in that configuration. Verified that I can run 4 external monitors in the MacOS, and also a Bluetooth mouse. I need to run 4 external monitors. Anyone have a similar problem or possible solution? And, please, don't suggest buying a Windows computer. Don't want to do that.


texts: Garageband still taking up space in High Sierra

texts: Garageband is taking up nearly 25 GB of space under Music Creation when I look at "Manage" storage on my Macbook Air running High Sierra. I have deleted every file for Garageband, including Apple Loops and the preferences and containers and any files that were suggested online in various help lists, including this one. I deleted all files and emptied the trash and restarted several times, and it STILL shows 24.93 GB of space used under Music Creation for GarageBand instruments and lessons. I don't use GarageBand nor do I use LogicPro, so I would like to free up that much space. Any ideas on what to do next? This is infuriating, I've tried all the suggestions, what I am missing?


texts: How do I spin down a secondary disk when not mounted?

texts:
I have Macbook Pro 13" (Early 2011). I replaced the SuperDrive with a SSD that now is my main disk. The existing HDD is used for Time Machine and nothing else.

I have 2 problems with the secondary disk:

After a Time Machine backup, it stays awake way too long. I want it to go right back to sleep.
When I eject the disk, it keeps waking up after a while, and then keeps spinning forever.

How can I fix these 2 issues?

Edit
I found a program called Cocktail that you can set the sleep timer with, unfortunately this is for both disks. How will this affect the SSD?


texts:
I am trying to access some lost photos from a MacBook Air backup (I no longer have the computer). I am denied acess to pictures folder because I don't have permissions. How can I log in with password and get access? This was my wife's computer; she has the  login credentials, I just need to know how.

I have a MacBook Pro laptop with OSX Yosemite, with Time Machine to a 2Tb G Technology G-Drive with USB 3.0. The backup I am trying to access is a 2013 file (G-Drive/Backups/LuAnne'sMacBookAir/Latest/MacintoshHD/Users/luanne/Pictures)

Clicking on "Pictures" denies access by saying "You do not have permission to open the document “Pictures”."


texts: How to run a Tiger 10.4.11 virtual machine?

texts:
I need to access some .omf files, which were originally created in an old version of AVID DV. As far as I know, this software only ran on Tiger PPC Macs. The PowerMac PPC G5 I originally used is on it's very last legs & will not reliably start up. An AVID rep told me that these old files would not be accessible with a current version of AVID and I have discovered that these files cannot be accessed with Final Cut Pro. What is my best option for getting this software running so I can access these OMF files in an AVID DV timeline?

What I have to work with:

a white Intel Santa Rosa Macbook [3,1 - Build 9L31a] running Leopard
the original MacBook Leopard install discs
a variety of non-bootable disk image clones of a PPC G5 Tiger drive w/ AVID DV installed
the dongle required for AVID DV to run
the original G5 PPC Tiger install discs
the original AVID DV install discs
a Mountain Lion / Yosemite dual-boot Mac Mini
a 2TB blank external USB drive
a 1TB external Firewire drive that I can erase & reformat if necessary
Parallels & Fusion for Mt. Lion


texts: MacBook dropping Wi-Fi/network connection

texts:
Since purchasing this new MacBook, I have had the problem of my Wi-Fi intermittently not working. I will have a strong signal, be in the middle of working, and suddenly the page will not load, or I get the spinning beachball. I thought (and hoped) that when the new OS X (El Capitan) came out, the problem would be solved. It hasn't been.

I've figured out that if I turn Wi-Fi off, then immediately back on and then just reload the page, it will work fine. But that is just a band-aid; I want to get to the root of why this is happening. I know it is not an internet/network issue on my end as I just upgraded to a brand new router and modem, and upgraded to the fastest cable internet available. It only happens on the MacBook. Not the iPhone, not the iPads/iPods, not the printer.

I have run the diagnostics and taken a sample of all the times it happens to see if there is a common denominator, but there isn't. My network provider suggested moving the router closer to where I typically work so it need not go through too many walls, but it hasn't impacted the issue at all.

The only thing that has changed is that I have used the MacBook, adding applications, bookmarks, documents, etc. This was not an issue when I first got the laptop. It started about a month in.

In researching the issue, it is clear a lot of Mac users are having the same problem, but no "fix" that I have come across (and I have tried them all) has worked.

Any lifeline to fixing this will be much appreciated!


texts: Storing photos from iPhone remotely and then deleting them off of device

texts:
My dream scenario is where I can:

Take photos with my iPhone
Then press a button that uploads them to a server (ideally one which I own, but I would also subscribe to a service) and then deletes them off my iPhone.

The photos then should be easily accessible via a web client where I can decide which ones to keep, print or delete forever.

Any recommendations as to services which do this or come close?


texts:
I just noticed this recently so I'm not sure whether it started being like that after installing Catalina or some time later.

I’ve installed Xcode version 11.2.1 from the App Store and some of the icons for frameworks that get installedlook like generic folders instead of having the "Lego" brick icon in Finder.

This is quite annoying as it makes it harder to tell them apart from regular folders. How can I change it back?


texts: Save command line output to a file without any graphics or special characters

texts:
I want to save the command line output data in a text file. I am running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6. The problem is, it has some graphical output which I don't want to store. What I need is, only the  strings and their corresponding values. Could you help me please?

The shell command I am running is:

pwmetrics http://www.cnn.com --runs=1

And the output shown in the Terminal is:

This tool to generate web page performance metrics is open source. Here is the error I am getting while I try to save my code:

And the o.txt file contains nothing.

The shell command I have tried so far are:

pwmetrics http://www.ieee.org --runs=2 &> /Users/ssr/Desktop/o.txt
pwmetrics http://www.ieee.org 2>/dev/null | tee /Users/ssr/Desktop/o.txt
pwmetrics http://www.ieee.org yes>/dev/null | tee /Users/ssr/Desktop/o.txt


texts: My wireguard install has broken and I'm unable to fix it

texts:
Since I've installed Wireguard on my MacBook Air running MacOS Sierra it hasn't given me any major problems until now. I've been using wgcf to generate the wireguard config file, but I don't think that has been the cause of my issues with wireguard. So, in the last day or two when I run wg-quick up ~/wgcf/wireguard-profile.conf it prints three lines and then hangs.
[#] wireguard-go utun
[+] Interface for wgcf-profile is utun1
[#] wg setconf utun1 /dev/fd/63

I've been trying to fix this in all different kinds of ways from using brew to uninstall and reinstall wireguard-tools and wireguard-go. I manually downloaded the latest version of go and wireguard-go and it still hangs like it did before. At this point I don't know what to do.


texts: Time Machine: should I partition a 500GB disk?

texts: I was considering using Time Machine and I was wondering if creating a 50 GB partition on a disk of 500 GB for it make sense.


texts: Transfer data from iPhone with no password to Apple ID

texts:
My Apple ID got hacked a few months ago and it's still on the iPhone 5 and I can't access the password as it as hacked!

How can I transfer just the music from iPhone 5 to iPhone 7?


texts:
I tried to update iMovie and got the following error.

Update Unavailable with This Apple ID
This update is not available for this Apple ID either because it was bought by a different user or the item was refunded or cancelled.

It is true that I have not purchased it, indeed I don't think I have ever used it. It came with my MacBook Pro when I bought it in 2011. I mainly decided to install to stop the App Store from nagging me about it.
EDIT
After a number of calls to Apple Support, and a solution which didn't work I was given a redemption code to install the new version.


texts: Why do I have to unlock an iPad to charge it?

texts:
When I plug in the "iPad (6th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular" to the MacBook, it always says "unlock this iPad to use accessories."  What it doesn't say is that it also won't charge until I do so.  Took me several times to figure this out.  (Has a cover, so I didn't see the message.)

But the iPhone 7+ doesn't do that.  Both have IOS 12.4, so there must be a setting that I am not recognizing.  Or are there distinct unlabeled "flavors" of IOS?

How can I make it start charging as soon as plugged in, even if screen is locked?


texts:
I have an iPhone 5S which I recently upgraded to iOS 10.0.2.

Since 10.x, when I receive a call I cannot always answer it. The calls appears on the display with the swipe-to-answer widget, but the widget is non-responsive. Swipe all you want, nothing happens, and the caller eventually gives up.

The same is now occurring on my wife's iPhone 6. It is very frustrating! Anyone else seeing this and/or have any suggestions?


texts: Toggle between two most recent windows of the same app in Mac

texts: We know that using Command + ` (Cmd + backtick) will allow you to switch between windows of the same app. Suppose I have 5 windows of Chrome and I want to toggle between two most recent windows of Chrome. Is there a shortcut for that? Can we assign one?


texts: How do I mirror my hard drive?  I want to preserve programs for which I've lost the license number.


texts: softwaredownloadd consuming insane amounts of RAM

texts:
When I went into Activity Monitor, I noticed that a process called storedownloadd was consuming 2.7GB of RAM and increasing RAM usage steadily (3.1GB during screenshot). However, it was not consuming any CPU cycles, and I am not downloading or updating anything. Why is it consuming so much RAM without using any or very little CPU cycles?

I also noticed that my compressed memory was 3GB. Is this linked to the process' RAM?


texts:
Here is the ls output of my /bin directory:

[csh       ksh       zsh       bash      dash      tcsh      sh      ...]

Prior to catalina bash was the default and now zsh is default. What's the usage of others?


texts: How to permanently turn off check spelling while typing in macOS!

texts:
How to permanently turn off check spelling while typing in macOS - for each and every app. Whenever I turn off this option in anyone of my default or third party mac apps within a few seconds these option turns itself on automatically, so is there any option to turn this off permanently across each and every app?

I have already tried each and every solutions mentioned in these question Can't disable 'Check spelling while typing' in 'Notes' in OSX El Capitan 10.11.6

But still it automatically gets turned on!


texts: Turning on/off Airplane mode on iPhone X from a desktop computer

texts:
Is there a tool similar to the Android debug bridge (adb) for iOS? Specifically, if connected to a computer via USB, is it possible to turn on and off Airplane mode with some command, interface or tool?

I have tried libimobiledevice. However, they don't have support for Airplane mode toggling.


texts: Boot Camp External Drive only booting to one computer

texts:
Firstly, I apologize for duplicate posts -- I realized that I wasn't signed in to my account on StackExchange.

I followed these instructions (Is it possible to use Boot Camp with Windows 10 from an external HDD?) to install Windows 10 to my external SSD (Samsung T3). I followed Alex Lambert's guide (the one with most upvotes & correct answer), and was able to install and boot Windows 10 successfully.

I ran to a problem today, as I was connecting the drive to two other Macs until I noticed that my drive was not being seen from the boot menu (option key), although I could see both of my drives (my drives are partitioned in half: 250GB for Windows (NTFS) and 250GB for Data for both OSes, Windows and OS X (exFAT)) in OS X on the other computer.

The computer I used to install was a MacBook Air Mid 2013 and the computers I used to test were two MacBook Pro Retinas made between 2014 and 2015.

Please help, apologies for the noob question (I'm new to this site).

Thanks.


texts: Power off frozen Macbook with a touch-bar

texts:
I have a MacBook Pro with a touch-bar, and thus no physical power button.

I have tried holding my finger on the touch id button, but to no avail.
It has been frozen for several hours (on the screen of just apple symbol with loading bar) while updating
I want to try to power it off/power it back on again to try to unfreeze it.

Is there some keystroke or button that can power it off?


texts: Is it safe to add other files on the same drive that Time Machine uses as a backup destination?

texts:
I have my back-up data & storage all on the same partition (No partitioning was done) on an external HDD?

Could time machine overwrite other data or does this arrangement keep all the data on the drive safe?


texts: MacBook Pro fuzzy screen and freezes on startup at the Apple logo with half progress bar

texts:
Details: MacBook Pro 2011, El Capitan.
Issue: As mentioned above in the subject. Picture Given below.
Resolutions tried so far:

PRAM Reset - Heard the Chime of reboot but still hangs the same way
Verbose Mode - Stops at AirPort: RSN handshake complete on en1
Recovery Mode - The screen in the picture below appears but after sometime, a complete blank grey screen (without Apple logo) came up, the disk seems to be spinning but then nothing.

Pretty much tried all these options: MacBook Hangs on Boot at seemingly different stages each time

There was mention about a resolution with another Mac but was not elaborated. I have a second Mac, MBP 2015. Can someone suggest what can be done?

I have also read this article, Mac book Pro [2011 model] - Screen bit distorted and greenish tint and does not boot completely after the apple logo and progress bar loads and want to check if my problem is related to this issue.

Thanks a lot for your time and suggestions.