texts: Can't see HD in disk utility in recovery mode, but can in OS

texts:
I'm pretty new to Macs.  I got an iMac Pro in 2017 (grey one) and about 6 months ago it started giving me occasional folder flashing icon on startup.

It also started occasionally forgetting my password and so I'd have to reset it.

I figured maybe the HD got corrupted, so I ran first aid on it in disk utility while logged in.  Whenever (after a restart) I run this, it says it's ok.  If I immediately re-run it, it says there's corruption and I must run it from recovery mode.

Problem is, whenever I boot into recovery mode, it can't find the disk at all.

Clearly it can find the disk for me to log in and run disk util in the OS.

I don't have any external drives attached.

It's running Mojave 10.14.3 (I tried updating to 10.14.5 and it has a broken download and won't download the remainder of the update - that's yet another issue).

This iMac has hardly been used at all since I bought it.

Thanks for any pointers.


texts: Enter passcode without touch screen [iTunes]

texts:
I have an iPhone 5, which has the screen broken, so I can not type the passcode. After connecting the phone to PC, I wanted/tried to backup the data that is on the phone.

But iTunes says that I need to enter the passcode to access. Is there any possibility to simulate a keyboard or something and enter the passcode on the phone without the screen? Or the only possibility is to replace the screen with a new one.


texts: Remote control Pandora iPhone app from Mac

texts:
I'm trying to replace my Sonos system with old iphones. I can stream Pandora with the iphone app but also want to be able to control the music remotely from my Mac.
Is there a way of doing that?


texts: Using a second HD and installing apps on external drive?

texts:
I am considering adding an extra drive to my Mac Mini (possibly a tower-size one like mentioned here) and keeping it permanently plugged-in, for extra space and to leave the main Macintosh HD for essential files - system apps, my Adobe apps etc.

I have a 500GB hard drive, with currently 204.68GB remaining on it, but was considering using the additional drive for the other files I create. I also have a portable drive (SATA) which is NTFS-formatted, but that's used for files I frequently need to carry around - PowerPoint presentations etc.
On the additional hard drive, it would be for other things that are less frequently used.

However, what would be the best way to go about this? Also, do applications work well if installed on an external drive - e.g. Quark XPress, MAMP etc. (although I may leave MAMP installed on the Macintosh HD but am not sure whether to move it).

I have looked up second HD and installation on Google, but what I found was about installing OS X on a second boot drive, not quite what I was looking for!

My question is, basically: Will applications run well off a second drive, and is this a good idea before I even do it?

I'm fairly new to OS X, got better since I started on it in mid-2012, any advice is much appreciated!


texts: Which Ports are open by Default on iPad 2 (iOS 6)?

texts:
I have a Question:

Which Ports should be open on iPad 2 by default?

Because on a port scan, my iPad shows some completely irrelevant ports open (ex. IIS on port 1027)!


texts: Cant seem to file share between cloned drives

texts:
Im running two macs on my home office setup; a 2010 Macbook Pro and a 2011 Mac Mini. Both have been upgraded in the past with Crucial SSDs and for each I used the Carbon Copy software to clone the drives before installation. I noticed the other night I couldn't Airdrop between my two machines. I figured this must have something to do with the clone and was wondering if there was a workaround to fix this issue?
Ive also noticed issues in the past with apps like iMessage not updating on both machines, only one or the other.
For the time being Dropbox does the trick, but having Airdrop operational between the two would be ideal. Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!


texts:
I have a 2010 MacBook Pro running OS X Yosemite with 4GB of RAM and 200+ GB of disk space. After switching users, the user who has just logged in is slow. Waiting several minutes or dropping to Terminal and running sudo killall -u $other_user -KILL seems to immediately show an improvement in performance.

The only consistent symptom I can find is that the other user has a number of processes, nearly all Chrome, using CPU cycles. I have not tracked this observation consistently enough to say if it is always true or not. When OS X switches users does it treat the other user as if the system were asleep or does it allow that users processes to run?

Killing another users running processes is poor manners. Is there a better way to solve this problem? What can I examine to determine why the system is slow after switching users?


texts:
so I have my macbook air (late 2010) and it has been working fine for a good while, now all of a sudden for no reason (Ok i may of dropped it but the drop was less than 1 foot and mac showed no damage after) but the speakers dont work and when i plug my 'kotion each' (headphones) into the port the audio symbol is grey and no audio ANYWHERE.

yes I have tried to wiggle the headphones and have looked many other places no luck...


texts:
I branched Exportify to output in an iTunes friendly format, and have used it to move my Spotify playlists over to iTunes.

It mostly works, except the import process seems incapable of adding songs from Apple Music which are not already in my Library. After running an import, I get a message saying "Some of the songs in the file “exportify.txt” were not imported because they could not be found.", which suggests it's only looking in my Library for songs to add.
It's possible to do this manually, so I don't see why letting the import process do it would be a problem...

Does anyone with experience with the iTunes importer know how to work around this (or has an alternative way to migrate playlists from Spotify)?


texts:
I have a LG SJ2 soundbar connected to a Sharp Aquos lc-32hi3012e TV via 3.5mm jack from the TVs headphone out and while I can adjust the volume using the remote of my Apple TV 4K powering it on and off together with Apple TV and TV doesn’t work. My Amazon Fire TV Stick could be trained to do this yet I do not find an option besides volume with the Apple TV.
I will get an optical cable to connect the soundbar to the TV but I doubt this’ll change anything.
It doesn’t have hdmi but pairing the bar with the ATV via Bluetooth doesn’t work. I get an error. It pairs with my iPhone just fine tho.
ATV OS is up to date.


texts: What Bit Encryption does Apple Use on Mobile Devices?

texts: Apple Encryption Question: I know if you have the iPhone 3GS or later version, an iPod touch 3rd generation or later version, or any iPad, the user can employ encryption to protect the contents. My question is specific, does any one know what bit encryption Apple uses?


texts: Make the most out of a mac without admin account

texts:
So. I've got this laptop from work. Big corporate enterprise.
Bureaucracy can't give me an admin privileges so I'm stuck with what I can install at my home folder.

Got lucky it came with a C compiler (clang), a decent Python distribution and Ruby so I could get homebrew running.

It seems that I can't get to the app store, but that would not be such a big deal because I don't want to spend money on this.

I'd love to get matplotlib running but it seems that it could not be done without tinkering some lib paths. Is there a way to workaround that?

Fuse or whatever I could use to get to mount something other than mac-formatted disks. Particularly my cellphone as a storage device and not that crap you get as bluetooth manager...

Any experience on the subject?

How did you deal with this kind of setup?


texts: Is there a way to format a MacBook hard drive from Windows?

texts:
I have an old mid-2008 MacBook, used to work fine until one day I decided to install CloudReady on it, it worked like garbage.

I tried all the cmd+[whatever] options to get a boot menu and rollback to macOS but nothing works, now I removed the hard-drive and plugged it (with an adapter) in my Windows PC.

What can I do from here knowing that I don't have access to any Mac right now? Also keep in mind that my end goal is to install Ubuntu on this Mac because the new macOS will be super slow.


texts:
I'm using MacBook pro 15 with Yosemite 10.10.3.
I can't get CMD + Tilde to work. In keyboard shortcuts it appears to be on.

What's the problem here?


texts:
Anytime I try to use macports I get the following error:

--->  Computing dependencies for wget
--->  Dependencies to be installed: gettext libiconv ncurses gmp gnutls libtasn1 nettle libgcrypt libgpg-error libidn pcre bzip2 libedit zlib
--->  Activating libiconv @1.14_0
Error: org.macports.activate for port libiconv returned: Image error: /opt/local/bin/iconv already exists and does not belong to a registered port.  Unable to activate port libiconv. Use 'port -f activate libiconv' to force the activation.
Error: Failed to install libiconv
Please see the log file for port libiconv for details:
    /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_textproc_libiconv/libiconv/main.log
Error: The following dependencies were not installed: gettext libiconv ncurses gmp gnutls libtasn1 nettle libgcrypt libgpg-error libidn pcre bzip2 libedit zlib
To report a bug, follow the instructions in the guide:
    http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets
Error: Processing of port wget failed

This hasn't always been the case.  Have I corrupted something on my system?


texts: Why can't I see some of my notes from my iphone on my macbook?

texts:
There are some notes that I created on my iphone and i can't see them on my macbook pro.  I have icloud turned on everywhere and I do see certain notes synced across my devices but some are just on one.

Is there anyway to determine what the issue is?  Is there a known issue with notes not syncing properly?

Any suggestions are appreciated.


texts: Are there any apps to improve wifi priority sorting in macOS?

texts:
I know how to sort wifi networks by priority in macOS, but the interface makes it a serious tedious task. I travel constantly so I have a tremendous number of wifi networks. Being able to search for networks and more easily set priority rules would be a great thing.

Are there any macOS apps out there to improve the interface on wifi sorting?


texts: Using TimeMachine backups after changing (short) username on OS X?

texts:
I changed my (short) username on OS X Mountain Lion using the instructions mentioned here.

I am guessing that would sort of invalidate all the TimeMachine backups I had till now. Is there a way to fix that?


texts: Is there a way to force Mail.app (6.6 1510) not to convert email addresses into hyperlinks in message body?

texts:
I'm a system administrator, and I daily receive reports from several mail servers which contain thousands to tens of thousands of email addresses written as plain text (logwatch, from a Postfix server) mentions.  When one of these is selected as the active message, Mail hangs for up to 30-45 seconds with the spinning beach ball cursor as it converts all those addresses and also message-ID strings to hyperlinks.  Most of the message-ID strings end in an internet domain name, so they get converted too. Sample lines:

 NOTICE: reconnecting in response to: err=2006, HY000, DBD::mysql::st execute failed: MySQL server has gone away at (eval 130) line 172.: 12 Time(s)
 Passed CLEAN {RelayedInbound}, [299.1.15.5]:60165 [299.1.15.5] <bounce-15_HTML-1470244-15974-6128593-1502@bounce.email.hsn.com> -> <omar@companyname.net>, Message-ID: <cf2bab34-2432-4880-9499-380b434c5612@xtinp2mta4208.xt.local>, mail_id: ylXNh849KLFQ, Hits: -0.388, size: 22377, queued_as: 094A84B10002, dkim_sd=200608:email.hsn.com, 4419 ms: 1 Time(s)

I would like to tell Mail.app not to make hyperlinks from body text, so as to avoid this issue.  I used to be able to do this in a previous version, but after an upgrade, it has reverted to this more 'friendly' behavior.  Can I tell Mail to only display plain text and attachments?

ETA:  The command line to set the 'Preferplaintext' default seems not to work in this version, though it used to in a previous version.


texts: Connecting a 2007 Mac mini to a Samsung Tv

texts:
I have a mid 2007 Mac mini that I bought to hook up to a tv and use for Netflix, tv, etc.
When I connect to the tv it shows a mode not supported message.
I followed the instructions on the web and I can remotely log in when it's connected, and it is running at 60Hz and I tried most of the resolutions all to no avail.
Has anybody had success connecting these two devices?


texts:
Kind of annoying. I use dev.*.com's locally in order to develop, but it seems like instead of respecting each domain I've defined in my /etc/hosts, my browsers are not able to reach out to any *.dev domain.

shopify.dev’s server IP address could not be found.

Things I've tried:

Switching browsers
Incognito windows
Restarting my machine
Verifying /etc/host doesn't have a greedy rule
Switched to Google's DNS 8.8.8.8
Flushing the Mac DNS cache

scutil -dns output:

DNS configuration

resolver #1
  nameserver[0] : 8.8.8.8
  flags    : Request A records
  reach    : 0x00000002 (Reachable)

resolver #2
  domain   : local
  options  : mdns
  timeout  : 5
  flags    : Request A records
  reach    : 0x00000000 (Not Reachable)
  order    : 300000

resolver #3
  domain   : 254.169.in-addr.arpa
  options  : mdns
  timeout  : 5
  flags    : Request A records
  reach    : 0x00000000 (Not Reachable)
  order    : 300200

resolver #4
  domain   : 8.e.f.ip6.arpa
  options  : mdns
  timeout  : 5
  flags    : Request A records
  reach    : 0x00000000 (Not Reachable)
  order    : 300400

resolver #5
  domain   : 9.e.f.ip6.arpa
  options  : mdns
  timeout  : 5
  flags    : Request A records
  reach    : 0x00000000 (Not Reachable)
  order    : 300600

resolver #6
  domain   : a.e.f.ip6.arpa
  options  : mdns
  timeout  : 5
  flags    : Request A records
  reach    : 0x00000000 (Not Reachable)
  order    : 300800

resolver #7
  domain   : b.e.f.ip6.arpa
  options  : mdns
  timeout  : 5
  flags    : Request A records
  reach    : 0x00000000 (Not Reachable)
  order    : 301000

resolver #8
  domain   : dev
  nameserver[0] : 127.0.0.1
  flags    : Request A records, Request AAAA records
  reach    : 0x00030002 (Reachable,Local Address,Directly Reachable Address)

DNS configuration (for scoped queries)

resolver #1
  nameserver[0] : 8.8.8.8
  if_index : 5 (en0)
  flags    : Scoped, Request A records
  reach    : 0x00000002 (Reachable)


texts: Gnucash and macports conflicting libgio-2.0.0.dylib

texts:
I have macports 2.5.2 already installed.
I have then installed Gnucash 3.2 dmg from gnucash.org.
When I run gnucash, I have the error:

  objc[93365]: Class GNotificationCenterDelegate is implemented in both
  /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/lib/libgio-2.0.0.dylib
  (0x10c333670) and /opt/local/lib/libgio-2.0.0.dylib (0x117a41620). One
  of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
  Segmentation fault:
  11

/opt/local/lib/libgio-2.0.0.dylib belongs to glib2 macports package.

If I rename /opt/local/lib/libgio-2.0.0.dylib, gnucash works fine. But this can't be a solution.

I've also tried to set DYLB_LIBRARY_PATH to

  /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/lib

But this way I have the error

  Segmentation fault: 11

Is there a way to run gnucash while macports installed ?


texts: Does Time Machine run backups even when no account is logged on?

texts: Does an account has to be logged on to trigger the Time Machine backup, or does Time Machine run without any session active?


texts:
When I download iTunes apps, music, etc.. content, the download speed fluctuates a lot and usually falls to around 64kbps. This is very impractical and time-consuming.
Whereas, if I download other files through my browser, I get 512 kbps (my actual connection speed. I use a broadband connected with a cable, not WiFi).

So, is there a way/software, which could capture/log the download link when iTunes starts the download, so I could copy that into my download manager and download at full speeds?
Maybe an IP connection logger, or firewall?
I would have to start the download via iTunes first though, since I need the validated, purchased app file.

Any other ideas?


texts: Late 2013 MacBook Pro subject to frequent crashing

texts:
My late 2013 MacBook Pro has began crashing frequently, sometimes when it is just "idling", and sometimes when I am Word Processing.

Here are some of the things that I have noticed.

This happens more often when the computer is not plugged in, but the battery still has a respectable 70% charge.
There is nothing obvious in any of the log files.
When it happens one of two things will happen: The screen will freeze, and after around 20 seconds the machine will power off; Or, the screen will suddenly go black and the fans spin like crazy, someone commented yesterday that they thought that the noise was coming from the heating system.

Someone, suggested that I try resetting the NVPRAM and SMC, both of which I tried to no avail. I also tried reinstalling the machine from scratch and while this seemed to fix the problem for a short while (one or two days) the problem is back, albeit less frequent now.

Does anyone have any ideas about how I can resolve this issue?

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)
1 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 (i7-4850HQ) CPU: 4-core
16 GB RAM
Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 1078
Intel Iris Pro - VRAM: 1536 MB
Color LCD 2880 x 1800
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - VRAM: 2 GB
macOS High Sierra  10.13.1 (17B48)


texts: OS X El Capitan – "package is not compatible" error

texts:
The build machine used in my project is not based on OS X El Capitan – it is running Yosemite.

So far I've never had problems with the generated installer file (.pkg), but on El Capitan, I receive the error "this package is incompatible with this version of OS X..."

What could be the reasons of such incompatibility? I've found one thread about using SIP protected locations but it doesn't seem to be my issue.
Is there any way to verify if my PKG file is compatible with El Capitan without actually having El Capitan installed?


texts: MBP shut down and will not power back on

texts:
My MacBook unexpectedly shutdown and not responding to power button or even battery status button, the lights on battery status isn't showing too. What happened? What should I do?
Edit : the charger light is dim and it's blinking amber and green light.


texts: Will it slowly ruin the battery to leave a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) plugged in at 100% all the time?

texts:
I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) that I use with an external 4K display so I tend to leave the lid closed and plugged in almost all the time.  Since it turns off external display when not plugged in when lid is closed.  Someone told me this would ruin the battery slowly and that Li-ion batteries should be discharged to around 10% and then charged to keep them healthy and that this model trickle charges the battery which is bad for it.  They suggested a docking station that would cut off the trickle charge.

Is this accurate information?  How should I best use this model with an external monitor to not damage the battery?


texts: I have an iPhone 5s. If I have apps open and try to close them (double press the home button, then swipe up), the desktop "blurs" before returning to its normal state. For example, I can see the carrier name moving and merging with the carrier name on the regular home screen. Is this normal behavior, and does anyone know how to fix this? I close apps all the time, so I find this a little annoying.


texts: Using Windows to boot up a hard drive with Mac OS in a virtual window

texts: I have the latest Mac OS X Mavericks installed onto a hard drive which I can boot from. As I mainly use a Windows machine, is there a way to boot up the hard drive in a virtual window on Windows, without having to reboot and change the BIOS drive boot order to access OS X Mavericks?


texts: Is there a way to update the emacs terminal editor that comes with OS X? I could remove the binaries and install Emacs using a dmg package, but the idea was to upgrade to a newer version with some command.


texts: How to take 9:41 am screenshots on an iOS Simulator and Device?

texts: I know that it's possible to record the screen on Yosemite and take screenshots that have 9:41 am.  Is this same functionality possible with the Simulator?


texts: Safari 6: Replaces all instances of font X with font Y

texts:
A certain website that I sometimes frequent for Oracle information uses a lot of Courier New.

This looks horrible in Safari. Is there a way I can always force Safari to substitute Andale Mono or Monaco when a page calls for Courier New?

The HTML in the offending page is not using CSS. The code looks like this:

<font face="Courier New" size="1">


texts: Spotlight shortcut not working within an app(s) anymore

texts:
I love the spotlights cmd + space functionality to start apps. Half of the time now the spotlight isn't working for me. I'm on 10.9.2 if that matters.

Say I'm in Chrome and want to open Word, for example. I hit cmd+space and... Chrome scrolls one page down. This is not just Chrome issue, if I'm using Wunderlist for example (another app) cmd + space doesn't do anything. I have to hit it 3-4 times to get spotlight open.

How can I get cmd + space functionality back? Its super quick way to launch apps and I miss it.

EDIT: Is there a quicker way to open an app with keyboard shortcuts? I'm slowly giving up on the spotlight. :(


texts: Numbers removes Byte-Order-Mask (BOM) from UTF-8 files when exported as CSV. How to fix?

texts:
I am dealing with a requirement where CSV should be UTF-8 encoded, in order to detect this in my java application I am relying on Byte Order Masks which is working perfectly fine but we found out that when we export the CSV file via Numbers it removes the BOM.

Can someone help me out with how I can avoid this?

I found a similar question but for Text Edit TextEdit removes Byte-Order-Mark (BOM) from Unicode/UTF files. How to fix?


texts: How do you stop an iPhone timer without touching it?

texts:
I locked my iPhone X in a clear, timed safe such as kSafe to prevent myself from being distracted by the phone. I thought it would be convenient to use Siri and the iOS clock app to start a tea timer with the phone, but when the timer went off I was left with the endless jingle and vibration in the background with no way to stop it. I could get it to quiet a little by using FaceID. I've tried using Siri, but saying "hey Siri" does not seem to work.

Is there any way to stop a timer without touching a phone? Or am I trapped in my quarantined room with this jingle until the safe opens? I realize this is not a huge deal but it would be nice to know.


texts:
I deleted an app from the Applications folder. However the original app icon in the Dock is now appearing as a '?'. I am unable to delete this icon from the dock, when I click to get the Options menu, I dont see any sub-items. I am unable to drag this icon into trash as well. Any ideas as to how this can be done?

Running Mojave: 10.14.3


texts: Why do non-Apple earbuds make my iPhone act erratically?

texts:
I have tried a couple of different brands of earbuds supposedly compatible with the iPhone, but on both, the mic doesn't seem to work and the phone itself will make Siri pop up, shut down or advance the audiobook I'm reading?

I've read the other earbud questions and the two non-Apple connectors have four sections, but the ends are straighter/not angled as the iphone ones.


texts: How to change the app switching keyboard shortcut from the standard Cmd + Tab key to Cmd + Eject key combo?

texts:
I would like to change the Cmd + Tab hotkey to Cmd + Eject.

I use a Mac Aluminium keyboard with the eject key, which is only present on external keyboards.

I would like to try this key combination, or other possibly, to avoid the excessive amount of Cmd + Tabs I do every day; and even maybe prevent a future RSI.


texts: Update to 10.14.1 on Mac Pro 5.1 results in black screen

texts:
I tried to update my Mac Pro 5.1 with the delta updater to 10.14.1 from 10.14. I have a Sapphire RX 580 installed.

After some minutes I saw he load screen but after that the screen turned black. I waited for over 2 hours and restarted the computer. I put my old Radeon 5770 inside and started in recovery mode.

I restored from time machine, but the screen remains black.

Any suggestions?


texts: Mavericks - Restore Damaged Recovery HD Partition without Reinstalling OS X

texts:
Recently, I tried to boot into the Recovery HD partition in order to perform some basic verify/repair operations using Disk Utility, only to find that my Recovery HD partition will not boot. Instead, I get a spinning progress indicator for 10 seconds before the computer shuts off. My computer (2012 rMBP, 10.9.1 Mavericks) boots into the main partition without issue.

Holding CMD+R causes the computer to boot directly to Internet Recovery, so the only way to access the Recovery HD is to hold Option when turning on the computer.  By pressing Shift when selecting Recovery HD, I was able to get the following error message:

Anonymous UUID:       (redacted)

Tue Feb  4 14:13:25 2014
panic(cpu 6 caller 0xffffff80005cb7d4): "Process 1 exec of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 2"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-2422.1.72/bsd/kern/kern_exec.c:3836
Backtrace (CPU 6), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff81d3753df0 : 0xffffff8000222f69
0xffffff81d3753e70 : 0xffffff80005cb7d4
0xffffff81d3753ef0 : 0xffffff80005ab867
0xffffff81d3753f10 : 0xffffff80005dfe51
0xffffff81d3753f50 : 0xffffff8000220b2b
0xffffff81d3753f80 : 0xffffff80002dc7d3
0xffffff81d3753fa0 : 0xffffff80002f35d2

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: init
Boot args: -x

Mac OS version:
Not yet set

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 13.0.0: Thu Sep 19 22:22:27 PDT 2013; root:xnu-2422.1.72~6/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: (redacted)
System model name: MacBookPro10,1 (redacted)

My questions is this:  Is there some way to restore the Recovery HD partition without redownloading and reinstalling OS X Mavericks?

I've done the usual NVRAM reset and Disk Utility check, but nothing has worked. All the solutions I've managed to find were for Lion (here and here), where it was possible to download the required Recovery HD files directly from Apple.


texts: Is there any easy way to share links between iPads? For example, if my friend is looking at something interesting and wants to send it to me. Is email still the best way?


texts: One sign in for Apple ID across all applications on MacBook

texts: It seems like every built-in application on a MacBook has a separate Apple ID log in. Is there a way to log in to your Apple account in one place on your MacBook Pro and have it sign in your iTunes, Messages, and other applications that have an Apple ID automatically?


texts: How to script a string from a txt file to be inserted into a given variable in turn?

texts:
I have a text file with names. Each name is on a new line.

Bob
Robert
John
Leslie
Anna

How can I read this text file with AppleScript so that I can use the name in each line to send an iMessage to somebody by replacing LINE-FROM-FILE with one name from the file?

tell application "Messages"
      set theBuddy to buddy "LINE-FROM-FILE" of service "iCloud"
      send "Hi there" to theBuddy
end tell


texts: Sending and receiving text messages (SMS) over iPhone 5 with Bluetooth from Win7

texts:
I have tried to connect my iPhone via bluetooth to my Windows 7 PC.
After following some suggestions online, I updated the Broadcomm drivers from here: http://www.broadcom.com/support/bluetooth/update.php

The iPhone now connects, and I was surprised to find an interface for sending messages (MAP MAS-iOS)

As well as the option to connect to the device to send SMS messages:

When I pressed Connect I got a functional little interface that shows the battery and reception of my phone:

However, when I try to send a text it keeps disconnecting. I can't identify any specific errors.

Has anyone managed to get text messaging via iPhone to work? I couldn't find anything online that shows success (or failure) and I feel like I am very close...


texts: Windows not booting up on VM Fusion. Need to get a file off of windows

texts: I am a pilot that has my logbook on the windows side of my iMac. Windows has been failing to boot up gives me an 000021a error every time. I have tried booting in last known good configuration and is safe mode but nothing gets windows to boot. I am trying to find out if I can access my logbook file even though windows is not booting. Anyone with any words of advice?!


texts:
Using Netstat (within Network Utility), I discovered an unusual IP address -- this IP address occasionally uses 9 different open ports, including ports 9998 and 9999. I also did an Zenmap scan, and it said the service name for port 9999 is "abyss" -- I looked up this up, and apparently it is a malicious service.

The unusual IP address appeared within the Netstat option, "Display the state of all current socket connections". The IP address does not appear to be associated with any applications on my computer (e.g. it isn't from Apple, Amazon, etc.)

The unusual IP address appears to be using the following open ports: 22, 80, 110, 143, 443, 993, 995, 9998 and 9999. Apparently ports 80 and 443 use the "http" service.

I've been trying to figure out how to close these open ports, but I can't figure out how; it is very frustrating. I'm using Mac OS Sierra. The "lsof" command in terminal doesn't work. I type in lsof (for example, lsof -i:9999) and nothing happens. Is there a terminal command (other than lsof) than can close open ports?

One option which doesn't work is the "tcpkill" command, which apparently can close TCP ports, but it must be downloaded and I can't figure out how to download it.

Also, is there a Mac program that specifically closes open ports?

It's really annoying that programs like Network Utility (Netstat) and Zenmap tell you what ports are open, but then don't tell you how to close them.

Also, is there a way to blacklist (block) a specific IP address so that it can't connect? (Can it be done in terminal?) This would be useful for ports that I probably want to keep open (such as port 80) but want to block a specific IP address from connecting to it.

Edit: I discovered that the unusual IP address is a Tor IP address, and it only occurs when I use Tor Browser -- however, it is not associated with any of the Tor "nodes" I am currently using, which is weird. When I say that the IP address is "using" a TCP port, what I mean the following: within Netstat (and using the "Display the state of all current socket connections" option), in the "Foreign Address" column, the mysterious Tor IP address appears -- and in the (state) column, it says "ESTABLISHED" (meaning, an established connection). The Tor IP address appears to be using port 9999. I also occasionally see a second mysterious Tor IP address in the "Foreign Address" column. That entity uses "http" (not "https"), which is also weird.

Also, as I said earlier, the mysterious Tor IP address appears to be using a number of other ports on my computer, such as ports 80, 443, and 9998. I will use lsof to try and stop the port 9999 process.


texts: How are Parental Restrictions Implemented?

texts:
I'm going to be repurposing my laptop as a media center in the near future and I was planning on using a non-admin account for day-to-day usage.  I was thinking of enabling parental controls so I can lockdown what applications are allowed to run but parental controls can be a PITA so I would like to know how it works under-the-hood.

Is it using seatbelt to implement some form of MAC or does it just make it difficult to launch applications through the UI?


texts: Google Chrome doesn't import Keychain credidentials after update

texts: I had installed the new Google Chrome update and after I restarted the browser, it stopped using my Keychain credentials. Is  it possible to solve this problem somehow ?


texts: Office for Mac 2011 Font Tahoma working but not showing in font list

texts:
I have the following problem: Using office for mac 2011 on Mac Os 10.9.4, I can use the font Tahoma in Word and Excel, but it doesn't show in the list, where you have to pick the font. If I just manually click into the list and write Tahoma, it works and I am able to use the Tahoma font.

Other applications, like TextEdit, show Tahoma and I am able to use it just from picking it from the font list.

I found lots of guides here one AskDifferent, as well as on the apple support forums and some other forums. Things I checked and tried:

The folder /Library/Fonts contains "Tahoma Bold.ttf" and "Tahoma.ttf"
The folder /Library/Fonts/Microsoft doesn't contain any Tahoma fonts
I tried to copy the two fonts also to /Library/Fonts/Microsoft - this didn't work
I used font book to check the fonts and search for duplicates, everything was alright
I booted Mac Os using safe mode (holding shift) to reset the font cache, this didn't help either
Microsoft Office is up to date, no new updates are available

The strange thing is, that the font was showing before. Probably it was removed from the list during some previous updates.

Do you have some ideas, what else I could try? Thanks in advance!


texts: Hub disconnect from MacBook Pro 2018 Touch Bar

texts:
I have a problem with my MBP 2018 Touch Bar.
Today I unplugged two hubs (with ethernet cable, HDMI, SD card reader and 4 USB ports)... and after this, when I plugged again the device the computer doesn't detect it, and I lost my other screen, keyboard, wacom, etc. Basically my workstation has been fall out
I tried to restart de SMC and PRAM. I reinstalled the OS too (Catalina 10.15.7)
The hubs are this:
https://cutt.ly/ugjYdwg
I need to finish a work for a costumer tomorrow...
Please! Can anybody help me?
Thanks in advance.


texts: Apple Magic Keyboard connected in Wired mode - turn Bluetooth off

texts:
Is it possible to turn Bluetooth off when connecting Apple Magic Keyboard over Lightning cable? I would like to use it in wired mode and don't want to empty and charge the battery all the time. Furthermore it would reduce electric smog.

Does the keyboard keep broadcasting Bluetooth when wired, or does it disable the keyboard's Bluetooth?


texts: moving mail folders to gmail labels - sublabels and hierarchy is lost

texts:
I use Mail.app and iOS Mail to access 3 different gmail accounts.  Currently I have all of my mail in folders "on my mac", but I'd like to be able to access them from my mobile devices (iphone, ipad) or when logging onto email from another computer (using the webapp).  When I drag and drop folders into my gmail accounts (as per this answer), the nesting/sublabels/heirarchy is lost.  How can I migrate preserving the proper structure?

My Folders looks something like:

Group/
|- SubGroup1/
|- SubGroup2/
   |- SubSubGroup/
   |- <some messages>
|- <some messages>

and the new gmail labels look like:

Group (messages)
Group/SubGroup1
Group/SubGroup2
Group/SubGroup2/SubSubGroup
Group/SubGroup2/SubSubGroup (messages)


texts: My iMac Messages merges two other household members

texts: My iMac, but not my iphone, merges messages to/from my wife and daughter, who have different iphone numbers and emails but share the same landline and street address.  How can I unscramble this? It's impossible to know which of them I am contacting or is contacting me..


texts: Windows 10 native on Late 2008 unibody macbook RAM upgrade- surpassing maximum?

texts:
Background:
I have installed Windows 10 natively (without bootcamp, but using drivers from the bootcamp package from the apple website) on a 5,1, Late 2008 unibody macbook that currently has 8gb of RAM installed, and is accessing all 8 gb.  It is smooth like pudding, works perfectly...  If you have one of these around, since the OS can't readily be upgraded to Catalina, I can say for certain that this is a worthwhile project (provided you aren't a mac fanboy and are willing to join the dark side!  Kidding! Apple is great, I just don't like their intentional obsolescence policies.)
Maximum RAM in these machines is a bit of craziness.  Apple says 4gb.  Then there was info online saying 6gb (using 2x4bg modules, upgrading the efi firmware),  It turns out that this particular unibody machine will access all 8gb, unlike the plastic white or black models.
But, I'm always trying to squeeze a little more juice out of my apple.
In my searching for info I have come across a statement a couple of times that got my gears turning.  "The issue for RAM with this model isn't physical addressing.  It can address far more RAM than even 8gb.  The problem is a limitation in the kernel." (paraphrased, by memory)
I'm out of my reach here, admittedly, so forgive me if this is a stupid question.
I'm not sure about the location of the "kernel" in my setup.  I think it is supplied through the Windows 10 installation, since the Macbook boots up and works without ANY Apple software (though the drivers are needed to get things like the graphics, audio, trackpad, etc working properly.
Question:
So, if I have the Windows "kernel" (or whatever it is in Windows that stands in place of the "kernel") and the limitation for RAM in this machine was the Apple "kernel", would it be possible to install more RAM and have a natively installed version of Windows 10 access all of the memory?  I'm wondering if I could cram 16gb into this machine?
I would try it myself, but I don't have the 2x8gb sticks of ram to try it out, and wanted to get some intel before buying the RAM.  If someone has the RAM kicking around and is willing to try it, dig those sticks out of the compost pile and tell me if it works!!!
Many, many thanks if anyone weighs in.


texts: I've got an error "This site is blocked due to content filtering."

texts:
The first question is: How it works?

And the main question is how to remove spying and traffic sniffing things from the Mac.

I've uninstalled Microsoft Corporate Portal, restarted, but it didn't change anything.

Clearly, we see that when I open a browser and navigate to http://pornhub.com (NSFW, obviously) it sends a request to 146.112.61.106:80, this is the problem.

I didn't configure any DNS settings:

macOS Catalina 10.15.1


texts: Download speed of an app at the App Store?

texts:
I think the title is self-descriptive, but I'll describe it more precisely here: What I mean by "Download Speed of an app" is when you click in the download button of an application, at the Purchases tab we'll see the app downloading, like this:

Where can I see the download speed of OS X El Capitan, in the case of this image?

This might have been asked before, but I don't find it anywhere.
I tried clicking the progress bar, but nothing is displayed, the only thing that the Purchases tab displays is the app, downloaded size, and time remaining.

This question takes me to another question: How do I know what's all that's being downloaded? I ask this because I feel the download speed is very slow sometimes, and I'd like to know what are the apps that are downloading stuff...


texts: Sidebar icons from non-system volume disappears after restart in Finder of Mac OSX 10.8.2

texts: I dragged folders in finder to Favorite in sidebar. Folders from system volume survived after system restarts but folders from non-system volume are gone. This problem happens since I upgraded from Lion. Any idea? Thanks.


texts: Will it do any harm to cannibalise an old hard drive as an SSD enclosure?

texts:
I have an old G-Tech Mini portable hard drive (FW800, bus-powered) that I don't need any more, so as an experiment I took the actual hard drive out and replaced it with a 512GB Crucial M4 SSD. I would like to use it as an external boot drive over FireWire 800 to speed up an old 2007 iMac.

So far, it seems to be running great! The drive shows up and is nice and fast. But I'm worried that this isn't a 'proper' hard drive enclosure - it could be that it was only designed to work with its original hard drive. I have no idea whether the SSD takes more or less power than the original drive. There is a very slight whining sound when the drive operates, but I can't remember if that was always there. The G-Tech drive was a model from about 5 years ago.

I know that with FW800 and without TRIM I won't be getting the best performance out of the drive, but I'm not worried about that. I just need to know that the chassis won't do any physical damage by delivering the wrong voltage or whatever. Am I doing any harm to the drive and/or enclosure?


texts: What to do when Time Machine backup is taking forever?

texts:
Yesterday I bought a 500Gb external USB drive for the sole purpose of backing up my laptop, which has 45Gb of data. After turning on Time Machine, it began the first backup, but after an hour or so reported there was still 4 hours to go. I had to pack up, so I aborted the backup.

This morning I requested Time Machine to do a backup, and now 3 hours later it tells me it has backed up only 156Mb, and there is 42 days to go!?!

I can't believe this is right, so the questions are:

What is going on?
What is the best way to deal with it?


texts:
I am currently surrounded by a long list of WiFi connections and every time I boot up my MacBook Pro, it switches away from what should be the default for the public WiFi connection.

How can I force my Mac OSX to recognize the domestic connection it should be using?

Is there also any way to block the listing of other WiFi connections, especially because there are so many?

I have tried going through the Network listings to delete the surrounding superfluous signals and have not been able to.  Is there something I'm missing?  Do they specifically have to be connections I've joined?  Is it not possible to block out the other domestic signals around me?


texts: Can not format External drive on MacBook Shows -> Error: -69877: Couldn't open device

texts:
I recently used Bootable External pen-drive with MACOS dmg.
Now when i am trying to format the pen-drive it gives Error

Error: -69877: Couldn't open device

On Disk Utility i have tried various option like Master Boot record, GUID Partition MAP, EX FAT
Also used command like sudo diskutil eraseDisk ExFAT USBNAME /dev/disk2
I just want to Format the pendrive.


texts: Can I use a Mac Pro for my office and run Parallels for my Windows-based ERP software?

texts: I have a small business that runs a Windows-based network.  I'm wondering if I can set up a Mac Pro, with virtual servers, and use Parallels for my ERP software?  Basically, can I have a Mac-based server and still run my business software?


texts:
On the iPadOS App Store, there is a “Filters” drop down menu on the left side of the search bar that allows you to filter apps by what platform it supports, price, category, age, and sorting options.

However, in iOS on my iPhone, I don’t see this drop down menu when searching. Are there any hidden buttons or features that allow you to filter search results in the iOS App Store like you can on iPadOS?


texts: MacOS Mojave remote access login screen stuck on infinite loading spinner

texts:
My company has a Mac Mini that we use for iOS builds. Occasionally, one of us needs to log in to it via remote access (from a Windows PC) to update the build tools.

However, ever since updating the OS to the latest MacOS Mojave, most of the time we cannot log in remotely. On any VNC client (I use VNC Viewer but have tested this with UltraVNC as well). As soon as one of us establishes a connection to the Mac, it just shows the login screen with the username and account picture, no password prompt or buttons of any kind, and a loading spinner that just spins forever:

I've found that I can "fix" this by physically accessing the machine and logging out of the account, but of course this is painful and impractical.

Is this just a mojave bug? Are there any ways to break out of this loop? I should mention that this didn't seem to be an issue before the mojave update.


texts: Deleting all user data from Time Machine after backing to disk?

texts:
I have backed up everything to my Time Machine backup disk. How do I securely delete all data that was backed up from my MacBook, including past Time machine snapshots?

I have only recently started using Time Machine and am not sure if deleting my data completely would also delete past snapshots?


texts: You can’t change the startup disk to the selected disk?

texts:
I am booting my macbook through an external usb drive. At system preferences - startup disk when I try to select my internal harddisk it says:

You can’t change the startup disk to the selected disk. The bless tool was unable to set the current boot disk.

What could be the issue with the internal drive or how can I fix it?


texts: Can I increase CPU power of my rMBP 13 by plugging to another computer (target disk mode or other)?

texts:
I own a MacBook Pro 13" (early 2015). It has a dual-core i5 2,9GHz processor, 8go DDR3 RAM and 512Gb hard disk.

The computer performs well in general. I use it exclusively for web development. My memory usage is quite good, I have a memory pressure around 55% in general.

However, several times in a day my CPU hang up during heavy tasks:

debugging,
indexing in the IDE,
database backup,
and several other docker manipulations.

I was wondering if there is some way to increase my CPU power while working at office.

I read about connecting the MBP to an iMac and booting it in "target disk mode". It appears I can run my system using the hardware of the iMac.

However, it looks like this is rarely used, and I didn't find some good user reports on using it.

So, some questions:

Does it perform really well and really better ?
Can I have a lost of performance because of the use of the thunderbolt port ?
Is it safe ?
Does sofwtare complains about switching from one system to another ?
Are there any other alternatives ?
Does the performance gain can be better than simply upgrading to an early MBP 15 inch ?


texts: How can I record music from a MIDI keyboard with a MacBook Pro?

texts: I would like to use our MacBook Pro to record music my daughter plays on her MIDI keyboard as well as her voice. What kind of hardware/software do I need for this?


texts: What does the iPad Mini warranty actually cover?

texts:
I am grasping at the straws here...  I am trying to read the iPad Mini US warranty, but I can't make heads or tails out of it.

Does it cover accidental damage?

Here is what happened.  I got my kid an iPad Mini 2 weeks ago.  At his mom's place, he placed it on the table, his mom was cleaning and put it on a fold out bed where his grandma stays when she comes there.

The grandma, who can't see very well, then folded the bed and bent the iPad mini.  It's still kind of functional (in that it beeped, when we tried to locate it via Find My Phone app), but there is a bent and the screen is cracked.

I seriously want to scream, still, 2 days later, but...on an off chance, does the warranty cover accidental damage?


texts: Airport Express bringing down the entire network?

texts:
I got a used Airport Express (2nd gen, the one that looks like a white Apple TV) to extend the wifi range of my Airport Extreme (the tall white monolith looking thing).*
Express rear view for reference:

I ran ethernet from the Extreme to the Express (which is the Apple-recommended method) and when I plug it in to the WAN port, it brings the entire network down… both Extreme and Express are inaccessible.
When I disconnect the ethernet cable, and the Express is connecting to the Extreme via wifi, the Express works to successfully extend wifi coverage. BUT I'd rather have it hardwired together (again, Apple-recommended, and a bunch of other reasons).
What's going on here? How do I get this work?
Here's what I know:

I actually have two Expresses (only connecting one though) and both behave exactly the same way.
I know the ethernet cable and its connection to the Extreme is working, because I had another device that used that cable/port and it was working fine (Netgear Arlo Pro Hub).
From the image above, it actually looks like the WAN and LAN ports are interchangeable(?). So I've tried on both ports. No difference.
All devices have been upgraded to the latest firmware.

*Yeah, I know: this is ancient tech. But up until this point my home wifi network has been rock solid. I got the pair of used Expresses for $30 total… so why not give this a shot?


texts: Mac is stuck in some kind of automatic layout windowing mode

texts:
My mac has suddenly stopped letting me freely move around my application windows around the screen, and its just allowing them to be shown in a grid view. If i try resizing windows, they just get automatically resized back. I've tried searching for some kind of setting in accessability, but i have not found out how to turn this off, its driving me mad.

Attached are screenshots of how it forces the layout of windows present

It is not possible to resize any of the windows here, and there is always a blue rectangle around the window with focus

with 2 windows showing, they are forced into this layout


texts: What is the difference between Apple iPad mini MD531LL/A and MD528LL/A I want to purchase a new iPad and I don't know what this means is there a difference between the two?


texts: MS OneNote beginning/end of line shortcuts on Mac

texts:
I am using OneNote on a Mac and the beginning of line and end of line shortcuts are Ctrl+A and Ctrl+E, respectively. I prefer the alternatives Fn+< and Fn+> instead, which work in other applications on Mac but not in OneNote for some reason. I tried adding them from System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts, but looks like you cannot add a shortcut with a Fn button there. Any ideas on how to enable using Fn+< and Fn+> as the beginning of line and end of line shortcuts in OneNote on Mac?
Note: I am using a Mac 2019 with a touchbar that is controlled by the Fn key.


texts: Does My Photo Stream work without an Internet connection? (local wifi only)

texts: I mean when My Photo Stream is enabled on my iPhone, does it upload photos to Apple servers? Then downloads them on other iDevices?


texts: Names removed from Mac Mail VIP list are sent to Junk

texts:
I do not use the VIP list in my Mac Mail (Version 12.2). It's just not how I organize my mail — not how I roll.

And yet somehow, I accidentally added my wife to the VIP list.

It was very easy to remove her name from the VIP list, and in fact the extraneous "VIP" list is no longer even present in my list of mailboxes. Great.

But now we get to the problem.

When she was removed from the VIP list, she was somehow added to the Junk list. Every email that I receive from her – from either of her three email accounts – is unceremoniously dumped into Junk Mail. This did not happen before the VIP incident, and I can't seem to "re-approve" her contact as a valid and good email now.

How can I remove my wife from Junk Mail? Please help, and in addition to my sanity, you may save a marriage!

Here are some details:

The VIP addition/subtraction was the very clear and distinct moment that this happened
POP3
I've bashed BASH many times, and am not afraid of
Terminal
In addition to Apple's junk filters, I use a general rule to send any email that is not in my contacts straight to Junk
My wife is in my contacts

Let me know if I can provide any more specific information.


texts: launchd, how to run a command every 3 minutes, during working hours on a weekday?

texts:
I know cron and that is fairly simple
*/3 9-17 * * 1-5 myCommand
How does one do the same in launchd?


texts: Sync Imessage Group Chat History between devices

texts:
I accidentally deleted the history of an imessage groupchat from my iphone but it still appears on my mac. Is there any way I can use this to recover it on my phone? They sync through iCloud.

I've backed up the folder ~/Library/Messages. How do I use those .ichat files to restore the chat in my iPhone?


texts: Installing pymol using macports on yosemite

texts:
I tried to install pymol using macports (after trying to build from the source code failed):

sudo port install pymol

It did install it, giving me two warnings:

Warning: xcodebuild exists but failed to execute
Warning: Xcode does not appear to be installed; most ports will likely fail to build.

I am able to run pymol, but it crashes after a minute or so. Also, the top window does not show any buttons:

The error message is:

Is this because of the warnings port gave me at the very beginning, or is there something else at work here?


texts: Can you send a message across the network?

texts:
There used to be the ability, perhaps before OS X, to send messages accross the local network, which displayed a popup on the receivers machine with the message. Is this still possible? Or is there another way to send a message to another member of the network?

If this isn't possible, could a text file be sent, with a message, to a recipients Public folder?

Preferably with the terminal.

(I realise there are lots of aps which do messaging, but I was curious if this was possible without installing software or setting up iChat etc)


texts: Change Screen Resolution for Mac Built-in VNC (Screen Sharing)

texts:
I am attempting to connect to a MacBook Pro from a Mac Pro with a 2560x1600 monitor using the built in screen sharing client.  I would like to be able have the connection fill the entire screen, but currently the best I can do is set the MacbookPro's resolution to 1680x1050 which fills about 2/3 of the 2560x1600 monitor.

Since the built in client is really a vnc server, I would like to be able to set the 'served' resolution to 2560x1600 instead of the native resolution of the MacBook Pro.  On a linux server this would be as simple as $vncserver -geometry 2560x1600 and then connecting to the created server.  Is there a way to get the native mac vnc client to do this?

For what it is worth, I found the location of the client (on Sierra):
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/AppleVNCServer.bundle/Contents/MacOS/AppleVNCServer but can't figure out what arguments it might take (if any)

This post seemed to use ARDAgent to activate and configure the VNC server but did not mention anything about setting the resolution for the server.


texts: Mid 2014 Macbook Pro Retina - Black screen on boot, no chime

texts:
I recently tried to install big sur on my macbook through a bootable USB drive. Everything went well until during the install the computer auto rebooted and showed the apple logo and load bar then went blank. I guessed the system was still installing so I waited 10 hours but still a blank screen. Now I have tried to unplug the USB and restart but the computer seems to be stuck in some kind of limbo. Here are the symptoms:

No chime when powering on
Backlight turns on but nothing is displayed
Fan spins
Ignores closing laptop lid (Fan still runs and backlight on)
No display signal (external displays say no signal)
USB gets powered on
Cannot boot into anything (Recovery, internet recovery, verbose mode, safe mode, usb drive)

I have tried:

Resetting SMC
Resetting NVRAM
Removing battery, leaving for an hour and reconnecting.
Replacing SSD with a working SSD from an identical macbook model. (still nothing)
Removing and wiping SSD using another computer
EDIT: I tried letting the computer sit with the screen blank to drain the battery as a last resort and now it will display the red low battery graphic if I press power on. But still no boot.

It seems base system is missing or corrupted. I have tried everything. What do you think?


texts: Some Contacts not showing up but are still stored in iPhone 4

texts:
I noticed today that several of my recent contacts are not in my contacts. However, I have been texting them and their info shows up when I go to contact from a text message or recent call.

When I am in my address book and go to groups only All Contacts is an option, and that's where they are not. How do I get them all back into my contact list?


texts: launchctl plist has a stderr that talks about how getcwd operation not permitted so how do I fix it?

texts:
TLDR for those who googled and found this

In Catalina, launchd can't read files or run scripts located inside your ~/Documents folder. Just avoid putting your scripts there and rewrite your scripts not to read files in ~/Documents. Creating a new file or symlink will work, though. See the answer below for details.

Original question

I came via this answer to help me create a script that will update a symlink every day.

And there was an article it links to teaching me how to use plist and launchctl

SO this is my plist com.journal.today.plist which is installed in ~/Library/LaunchAgents

<?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>Label</key>
    <string>com.journal.today.plist</string>

    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>

    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/Users/kim/journals/stderr.log</string>

    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/Users/kim/journals/stdout.log</string>

    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
      <key>PATH</key>
      <string><![CDATA[/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin]]></string>
    </dict>

    <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
    <string>/Users/kim/journals</string>

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>./makeTodaySym.sh</string>
    </array>

  </dict>
</plist>

When i check the stderr I saw the below

shell-init: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent
  1 bash: ./makeTodaySym.sh: Operation not permitted

stdout.log was empty

How do I solve this?

My original script

#!/usr/bin/env bash

date=`date +"%Y-%m-%d %A"`
folder="." # replace with full path to desired folder
file="$folder/$date.md"

if [ ! -f "$file" ]; then
    touch "$file"
    echo "Created file: $file"
fi

ln -sf "$file" "$folder/today.md"
echo "Created link to file: $file"

After trying out jksoegaard answer, the last part of my plist looks like this:

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
  <string>/Users/kim/journals/makeTodaySym.sh</string>
</array>

Latest change after taking jaume comment

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
  <string>/bin/bash</string>
  <string>/Users/kim/journals/makeTodaySym.sh</string>
</array>

Latest change

in the bash script

folder="$1" # replace with full path to desired folder

in the plist

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
  <string>/bin/bash</string>
  <string>/Users/kim/journals/makeTodaySym.sh /Users/kim/journals</string>
</array>

I have also tried

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
  <string>/bin/bash</string>
  <string>/Users/kim/journals/makeTodaySym.sh</string>
  <string>/Users/kim/journals</string>
</array>

And now I get this

shell-init: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: Operation not permitted
/bin/bash: /Users/kim/journals/makeTodaySym.sh: Operation not permitted

thanks to @jaume with great patience, he/she/they have helped me get to the point where I realized that the only thing that worked was to move away from the Documents folder in Catalina.

I did find this link https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250719819?answerId=251683647022#251683647022 suggesting to create a fake bash clone, but I didn't try.

Also a big thank you to @nohillside

One useful thing I learn is to load and unload plist without restarting laptop

first unload

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.test.today.plist

then load

launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.test.today.plist


texts: Copy photos from an iPhone to a USB flash drive

texts:
I can use Photos.app to import photos to my MacBook's internal SSD, but I can't figure out a way to copy them directly to my flash drive.

Is there any way to copy the photos without doing something insane like paying for some closed-source file-copy app or copying one batch at a time to avoid filling up my SSD?


texts:
I've been trying to backup / copy my Photos Library.sparsebundle and keep running into issues.

The original file is on a Drobo5N mount.I am trying to copy to an external SSD

The Sparsebundle is 168GB in size and the copy takes most of the night before failing at the last hurdle.

The initial error that I received, with copy reporting 164/168GB was

The operation can't be completed because you don't have persmission to access 'Photos Library.sparsebundle'

The file is not open in Photos. The Target drive was formatted APFS, encrypted and the source is DroboFS so doesn't support Mac OS permissions (owner listed as "unknown")

I tried to rsync the file last night and the copy failed with an error about not being able to set time on a file (sorry, didn't have chance to copy the error). Most of the files had copied according to the drive size but the sparse bundle was "unbundled"

I've reformatted the target drive as HFS+, journaled, encrypted and set a new copy going.

Any ideas what is happening?


texts: How do you disable Siri permanently on macOS Sierra (10.12.6)?

texts:
I work in security as an intern, and I've been asked by my boss to look into disabling Siri on macOS Sierra. I noticed that there's no way to prevent users from re-enabling Siri even if it's disabled by an administrator.

I've tried using "csrutil disable" in Recovery Mode and editing Siri's .plist files, but it seems to have no effect. Is there any way to completely prevent any user from running Siri on macOS Sierra?


texts: Vagrant/VirtualBox extremely slow despite 8GB-RAM/SSD-HD/2.53GHz Core2Duo

texts:
My VM (Ubuntu Vagrant VM) is extremely slow. While my Windows co-workers have a maximum of 1 minute page load time, my page load takes up to 8 minutes.

I tried putting log files in non shared folders—no Effect. I tried fiddling with the VirtualBox settings, but I do not know what I am doing there.

It really got worse with the Mavericks Update.

Anyone any ideas?

My System:

MacBookPro 2.53GHz Core2Duo
8GB-RAM
512MB SSD

My VirtualBox (4.2.22) Settings:

CPU 1 Core
RAM 2048MB
Hardware Acceleration enabled (VT-x/AMD-V)
Nested Packaging enabled

Due to a shared Vagrant file, the Windows user have the same VirtualBox settings.

LATE UPDATE: The Improvements that worked so far

After i had switched Laptops, now i am back to working with a VM on my Mac so i got back to this Topic.

SFTP Sync via IDE instead of SMB or Shared Folders
I stopped using shared Folders and instead i let my IDE (PHP Storm) sync the Files to teh VM via SFTP. So i am working in a local directory and the VM get's the files via SFTP Sync.
This was a huge Improvement.

The Adjustment of the Cores helped a tiny bit
See Answer by @zigg.

Changed Drive Setting to SSD in VM wich helped a tiny bit
See Answer by @IljaPavkovic.


texts: Force windows to be maximized but not fullscreen?

texts:
On my Early 2015 13" MBP, on both El Capitan and macOS Sierra, I notice that some windows -- particularly Google Chrome, of which I have the latest stable version -- often seem to resize themselves slightly upwards without my consent, not taking up quite the full length of available area between the bottom dock and the top bar:

See the dark gap between the bottom of the Chrome window (the area with "0 votes 0 answers" - that's a StackExchange webpage) and the light-blue dock showing my application icons? I'd like to have the OS automatically squeeze that gap for me.

I am not willfully doing anything weird like dragging my windows around with the mouse or resizing them when this happens. I think it happens when I close the downloads bar at the bottom of the Chrome window, most often.

I often use Alt + Click on the green button to force a window to be maximized-but-not-fullscreen, but if it's in this intermediate state where it's "not-quite-maximized", this key combo does nothing.

I don't want to run the window in fullscreen so that I have instant access to and visibility of menus and can always look at my dock without having to move my cursor to it.

Confession: I come to MacOS with a heavily Windows-based UI familiarity, and I'm used to the paradigm of having window dressings like menus and the Windows Taskbar taking up part of the screen, but being able to easily maximize windows with the "Maximize" button. Indeed, this behavior is consistent for the majority of popular GNU/Linux window managers, too. It's only on OS X / macOS where I'm seeing this strange behavior of windows that like to slide a few pixels underneath the bottom dock, or pull themselves up a little over time.


texts: Office 2011 issue with emailing an attachment

texts:
My laptop was recently upgraded to Mavericks and has Office 2011.  With an office document, I like to use file>>share>>email(as attachment).

When I do this now, I get an alert that Word was unable to mail your document.  Please make sure your mail program is configured correctly and that you can send mail with it.

Outlook 2011 is the default mail program and I can receive / send email with it.

Thanks for any help!


texts: Replace my MacBook Pro 15" 2009 hard drive

texts: I need to replace my MacBook Pro 15" 2009 hard drive with a bigger size. Will this hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136545&Tpk=western%20digital%202.5 be compatible with my Mac?


texts: High Sierra forgets display layout on reboot

texts:
Since I upgraded to High Sierra, my 2-display layout gets reset to side-by-side every time I reboot, when instead it should be vertical to match the physical layout of my monitors.

While potentially unrelated, High Sierra also lost my Login Items after the upgrade.

I'm using a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), running 10.13.

How can I get High Sierra to remember my display layout?


texts: Stop Safari asking for my password when autofilling my password

texts:
When using Safari, it will attempt to autofill passwords and credit card numbers for me. However sometimes (more than once per login) it will ask me for me computer login password.

Previously it would autofill the password without asking for my macOS login password. This changed when I enable two-factor authentication on my Apple ID. (I cannot disable two-factor because I am registered with Apple Developers.)

How can I make autofill actually autofill my password like it used to, without asking for my password?

Please do not recommend TouchID as a workaround for this issue.


texts:
Being silly I have agreed to update my iPhone 5c to latest iOS and now my phone looks dead.

When boots, it displays the following screen

If I connect it to my notebook, iTunes proposes to update phone and starts long term operation, which fails with error 1671.

Next time operation takes longer, now it is 60 mins.

What is it doing for 60 mins? Calculating the mass of proton with QCD? How to avoid this calculation?

How to recover my phone?

If I agree to reset my phone, will I loose all my photos?


texts: What are normal - or at least not harmful - temperatures for various components of my MacBook Pro?

texts:
I have a mid-2012 MacBook Pro with hard drive upgraded to 500GB SSD Samsung EVO and upgraded memory to 16GB. Lately (I think) the temp sensors have been reporting larger numbers (in degrees Fahrenheit).

Here is a copy of the diagnostics copied/pasted from the app Macs Fan Control. These numbers are in celsius instead of fahrenheight. Right now at the fan level its at, I can hear a little bit, but as of late it's been very noticeable.

I am wondering:

What is a general range of average/not harmful to the computer temperatures my Macbook Pro should be running at? And,
How does one remedy excessive heat? (I'm wondering whether there is a way to tell if it comes from a specific program(s) or whether it is wise to invest in one of those laptop cooling fans that you place your laptop on cop of for cooling purposes.

Macs Fan Control 1.4.8.1
MacBookPro9,2
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz [105]
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4000
macOS 10.12.5

Fans:
Exhaust-min{2000}curr{5089}max{6200}mode{0}

TempSensors:

TA0P (Ambient) - 49.375, 49.375

TB0T (Battery Max) - 34.7969, 34.7969

TB1T (Battery Sensor 1) - 34.7969, 34.7969

TB2T (Battery Sensor 2) - 33.3984, 33.3984

TC0E () - 82.1016, 82.1016

TC0F () - 83.5586, 83.5586

TC0J () - 1.45703, 1.45703

TC0P (CPU Proximity) - 69, 69

TC1C (CPU Core 1) - 81, 81

TC2C (CPU Core 2) - 81, 81

TCGC (GPU PECI) - 81, 81

TCSA () - 80, 80

TCTD () - -1, 255.973

TCXC (CPU PECI) - 81.25, 81.25

TG1D () - 83.5586, 83.5586

TM0P (Memory Proximity) - 47.125, 47.125

TM0S (Memory Slot) - 58.8672, 58.8672

TPCD (Platform Controller Hub Die) - 75, 75

Th1H (Heatsink Proximity) - 57.375, 57.375

Ts0P (Palm Rest) - 32.875, 32.875

Ts0S () - 48.7656, 48.7656

Disk drives:
Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB - 38


texts: MacBook Pro Unable to Connect to QNAP NAS

texts:
I am trying to find out why my MacBook Pro will not connect to my QNAP NAS. When attempting to use Finder in macOS to access the files on the NAS, it tries to connect but fails each time. When attempting to click "Connect As..." at the top right of the Finder window, it simply attempts to connect again without prompting you for a username and password as it typically would in the past.

Things that I can confirm:

All other computers on my network (Windows and Linux) are able to access the NAS
The MacBook has been able to connect to the NAS successfully in the past with no problems, however, I don't recall how far back it stopped working
I can ping the NAS IP Address from the MacBook
I have ensured that the NAS settings have Apple file sharing protocols enabled
The NAS does appear in the Finder window's sidebar, you just cannot access it.

Equipment:
- Macbook Pro (Mid 2015) running macOS Catalina 10.15.4
- QNAP TS-251 NAS w/ most recent updates.


texts: IKEv2 VPN not working after updating to MacOS Catalina - User authentication failed with username authentication settings

texts:
I had a IKEv2 VPN connection configured with MacOS Mojave that worked perfectly.

After updating to Catalina I can't connect to the VPN with the message User authentication failed.

Any idea how to fix or troubleshoot this problem?

The only logs I've found are in /var/system/wifi.log:

Wed Oct  9 23:47:06.462 <airportd[300]> _processIPv4Changes: ARP/NDP offloads disabled, not programming the offload


texts: Apple QuickTake™ 150 camera pictures in QuickDraw format…

texts:
Apple QuickTake 150 camera pictures in "QuickDraw picture" format cannot be opened by any software I have.

At some point in the dark reaches of the past, I recall being able to Save As… but at the time, I was ignorant of what was to come and was concerned with using as little disk space as possible. 150KB seemed big at the time.

I think the files are compressed as a few .tiff format duplicates fluff-up to over 6X its native format size. Preview shows the thumbnail image as it is compatible; but, the image is blank.

Now, years later, I would like to recover as much of as many past family photos as I can.
It may be that some utility is available. I'm patient and I have a few minutes — my alternative is futility.

Greedy me. I want it all. TIA


texts: Using 3 Monitor DP/HDMI Setup + Charging new Macbook Pro 16'' over max. 2 Cables

texts:
I want to finally switch back to a Macbook Pro after some years of using a PC. However, I do not want to give up on my setup using 3 to 4 screens.

My plan is on using the MacBook Pro 16 Inch i9 model. My screens support HDMI and Displayport 1.2 with MST/Daisy Chain. I also need Gigabit Ethernet, a USB-C Connection for an external SSD and some USB Ports for my Soundcard, Midi Piano and so on and also want to charge the laptop.
I want to use for this a maximum of 2 Thunderbolt or USB-C Connectors (Which I can glue together so that I only need to plug one thing to connect or disconnect)

TL:DR -- my goal is (in short):

Connect min. 3 external HDMI or Displayport Monitors (Which Support Daisy Chaining)
Charge the Macbook Pro
Have Gigabit Ethernet and USB A Ports
Maximum of 2 Connectors
Should have good performance (so no airplay)

Idea 1: The usualy way - DisplayPort Daisy Chain/MST

Macbook => Dock => Display => Display => Display
                => USB Devices + Ethernet
        => Charger

Usually I would "just" daisy chain my DP Screens, however I've read that MacOS does not support DisplayPort MST? So it probably will not work.

Idea 2: Using 2 Thunderbolt Docks on 2 Ports

Macbook => Thunderbolt Dock => Display (via DP)
                            => Display (via Thunderbolt Adapter)
                            => USB Devices + Ethernet
        => Thunderbolt Dock => Display (via DP)
                            => Display (via Thunderbolt Adapter)
                            => Charger

the next Idea would be to use 2 Thunderbolt Docks on 2 different Ports and to connect 2 displays on each (Per dock one via DP and one via Thunderbolt adapter). However, as I want to also charge the Macbook, one of these docks must support power delivery - I havn't yet found one that supports the 100W that the new macbook pro needs. I also don't know if that would work.

Idea 3: Using 2 Thunderbolt Docks Daisy Chained

Macbook => Thunderbolt Dock => Thunderbolt Dock => Display (via tb adapter)
                                                => Display (via DP/HDMI)
                            => Display (via DP/HDMI)
                            => USB-Devices/ Ethernet
        => Charging

The most elegant solution seems to be using two thunderbolt docks in series.
and then connect one display via DP on the first dock and one via DP + one via Thunderbolt on the second dock. So I can use the other Thunderbolt connector on the mac for charging.

The devices would be e.g. Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock and WAVLINK USB C Thunderbolt 3 to Dual DisplayPort

Will one of the above work? Any other Ideas (e.g. a dock with 3 Displayport outputs that actually work with OSX)?


texts:
I have three 2009-era Xserves that I need to assemble into a compute cluster/render farm for Blender. The Xserves do not have any operating system on them. What OS should I use for best results with Blender? Do I need OS X Server or can I get away with the client version or even Linux?

I've never assembled a cluster, nor do I have any server experience to draw from.

Hardware:

3 Xserves (specifically, the Xserve3,1 model)
5 CPU (20 cores total): 2.26 GHz quad core Intel Xeon 5500 series “Nehalem” processors (two CPUs each on two Xserves)
6 GB RAM on one of the dual CPU servers, 3 GB RAM on the remaining two Xserve
no Fiber Cards or Raid cards to complicate driver selection
no PCI cards
each server has a built-in NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with a mini DisplayPort output and 256 MB of video RAM


texts: Can dust build-up in Time Capsule (vertical model) be a fire risk (or other risk)?

texts:
Saw dust built up at the bottom vent of the Time Capsule (vertical model). Blew air in it to extract the dust from the other side of the vent. However I then noticed that some went back inside the unit (had the TC upside down for this).
After some research to see how it's made inside, I saw that there is 2 areas, one for the wifi components and one with the fan unit attached to the power supply.

I can't open it to clean it (no tools, no expertise).

My question: If some dust patches went inside near the wifi board or near the fan/power supply area, is this a risk for fire or any other risk ? Or is general dust build up in a computing unit not a concern in general ?


texts: How to capture audio with Quicktime Screen Recording

texts:
I need to create a bunch of screencasts for my work.  I was going to use Quicktime to do this but when I choose "New Screen Recording" to do this, the audio is never captured.

How can Quicktime be made more useful for screencasts?

Update:  Here are some suggested methods that have been proposed in various forums that simply are not viable:

Using a male to male audio cable and connecting the speaker jack to the microphone jack.  This might work on Windows, but Macs only have a single audio jack, ruling this method out.


texts: Why does data fail on edge network on iPhone?

texts:
Whenever I perform a speed test using edge network or try to send an image via text message or a group text on edge network it fails, even if I have multiple bars. Why does it fail like that? I seem to be able to receive texts. I expect it to be slow, but I do expect it to work.

iPhone 5, iOS 10.3.2


texts: Mac book pro 16 slows down completely when connected to an external monitor

texts:
I have a Macbook Pro 16" and recently purchased a 24" (HD) Dell monitor via HDMI (via a USB-C to HDMI converter)
After about 20m of usage, my mac comes to a crawl and really slows down.
It becomes impossible to work on the machine.
Plugging out the monitor fixes the issue in no time and I can see the kernel_task process (in Activity monitor) hit 900% to 1500% of CPU.
Specs
I am running macOS Big Sur
It is a 2019 model with Intel Core i9, 16 Gigs of RAM and
the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 4 GB graphics processor


texts: How to create a space from commandline in Mac?

texts:
I want to be able to create a new space from the command-line so that I can quickly launch a set of applications in a particular space.

Would be preferable if I could directly create the space in a shell script.

That way the overall process would become easier.


texts: Matching a column of cells to another column in Excel

texts: Ok, I need to compare "A" column to "B" column. I have a billing agency that generates  a number i.e. 00125785231... This number could be in column A at A80 and then in column b at B801... I need something to show in column C801 that it has a match in A column.


texts: Trouble transferring pictures from an iPhone 3GS to PC

texts:
I had dropped my iPhone 3GS and the left bottom corner of the screen had cracked. Now the touch screen nor home button work. I'm able to charge the iPhone with my USB charger but am not able to do anything on it.

I plugged it into a computer using a USB cord to transfer my pictures and videos and it only transfers 4, at the most, before it throws an error.

Is there anyway I can fix this? All my daughter's pictures from when she was in the hospital and videos are on my iPhone and I really don't want to lose all my pictures from when she was little! The pictures are the one thing im worried about.


texts:
I recently purchased an iPhone 4S from Craigslist that had been reset when I bought it.  When I try to activate the phone with the Apple ID that the previous owner gave me I receive an error saying that the account provided couldn't be used to unlock the device.

I know that it needs to be associated with the correct account but how do I even tell what account the phone was activated with originally?

The only thing I can see on the activate phone screen is the following:

  This iPhoneis currently linked to an Apple ID (xxxxx@gmail.com).  Sign in with the Apple ID that was used to set up this iPhone.

Is there a way to show or reveal the Apple ID that is associated with the account?  At the very least I want to contact the original owner to see if it was stolen from them but I can't even do that.  Very frustrating.


texts: Why do my applications keep crashing on Lion 10.7.3?

texts:
Once every couple of days an application crashes on my MacBook Pro with Lion (10.7.3).  It's also running the newer build that's supposed to have fixed these issues (11D50b).

This has been happening to me ever since I upgraded to Lion.  I brought the MacBook Pro to the Apple store and the Genius did some tests and said there are no hardware issues.  I even did a full clean OS reinstall hoping it would make the problem go away, but it still occurs.

Here's the latest example (below), I just clicked the red "close" bubble in the TextEdit title bar and this happened.  But it can be any application that crashes.  It seems random.

I've also tried creating a new account to test whether it's something unique to my profile but apps crash there too.

Why does Lion keep crashing apps on me?

Below is the head of the crash log:

Process:         TextEdit [151]
Path:            /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit
Identifier:      com.apple.TextEdit
Version:         1.7 (289.3)
Build Info:      TextEdit-289003000000000~3
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [123]

Date/Time:       2012-02-09 20:39:25.666 -0500
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.7.3 (11D50b)
Report Version:  9

Interval Since Last Report:          74970 sec
Crashes Since Last Report:           3
Per-App Interval Since Last Report:  88329 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report:   1
Anonymous UUID:                      20CE4128-76AD-4508-94DE-8AC8C5BB9231

Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000010


texts:
I'm running High Sierra on my iMac. Occasionally I'll respond to a request, that pops up on my screen, to read about an app or to try it. Sometimes when I do that a window pops up that looks like the one below.

I don't know what to make of this. Is there a font missing on my machine or is this a problem on the other end? Once I clicked in what I thought was the positive response box but it was followed by a similar pop-up. Anyone know what to do about this so I can read it or contact the site?


texts:
The directory ~/Library/Containers has a size 39GB on my system. This is huge. I guess that the directory contains some files created by running various apps. So the more applications I use, the more is being stored within the directory. It thus seems to be a cache-like directory. Can I safely just delete it?

PS. It turned out that the majority of the space (37GB of 39GB) was taken up by files from a single app:  CamWiz Webcam Recorder. But still, 2 GB are in the other directories and files, so I should be able to do a cleanup and delete most if not all of the files there.


texts: generic approach to finding the correct name to run an app from the command line

texts:
Whenever I am not in a browser or in my text editor, most of my time on my mac is spent on the terminal.

What's a quick, generic way to figure out how to run a gui program from the bash shell?  It seems like we always need to run around and find out that program xyz can be called as 'abc'.

For example, Sublime Text's is 'subl', Kaleidoscope is 'ksdiff'.  Great, but you need to look these up for each and every program.  And there are lots of identical questions, about Finder for example.

What is the best Mac approach to figuring out the command line "alias" for an any app?  Can I make use of the Activity Monitor if the program is open? Do I have to go nose around in the Applications folder?  If so, how can I tell the "command line alias file" from the others?

Or can I use "ps aux" in bash?  For example, on Linux or on Windows, "foo.exe" in the list of processes means that you could just type "foo.exe" to launch that program.  But Sublime shows up as Sublime Text, not 'subl', so don't think that would work.


texts: Turn off Control Center in macOS Big Sur

texts: Is there a way to turn off the control center in macOS Big Sur? In settings under dock and menu bar there are settings to the control center but no option to disable it.


texts: Name a phone number without adding to Contacts?

texts:
On my iPhone I have a well-curated Contacts list of all of my friends and family.

I also often want to name the phone numbers of more temporary "contacts": one-time business deals, recruiters, friends-of-friends for a single weekend, etc.

I don't really want to add these people to my Contacts forever, but I do want to read their name on Caller ID when/if they call.

Does iOS have any concept of "second-tier" contacts that are saved but not listed as "Contacts" in my address book?

How can I save and name phone numbers but keep them separate from my true Contacts?


texts: macOS Sierra and QNAP SMB share - Disk does not support Time Machine backups. (error 45)

texts:
Quote from macOS Sierra: Disks you can use with Time Machine

  If your backup disk is on a network, the network server can use Server
  Message Block (SMB) file sharing. Your Mac must be connected to the
  SMB server when you set up Time Machine. After you select the network
  disk in Time Machine preferences, Time Machine automatically connects
  to the disk when it’s time to back up or restore your data.

> sudo tmutil setdestination "/Volumes/$NAME/"
Password:
/Volumes/$NAME: Disk does not support Time Machine backups. (error 45)
The backup destination could not be set.

I use QNAP TS-251 with latest firmware. The SMB share is working fine with Finder.

Any idea? I don't wish to use AFP.

I followed the instructions How do I set up Time Machine backups between my Mac and NAS on a domain via the SMB protocol?. When mounted as SMB it doesn't work, but with AFP it works.


texts: Troubleshooting an iPhone 4 connected to wifi, but can't connect to the internet

texts:
I recently got an iPhone 4. At home, it connected to our wifi and worked perfectly. Now I am at school. My iPhone is now connected to the wifi here, it says that it is connected and has strong wifi signal. However apps that require internet like email, Facebook app, and online games (like words with friends, etc) load and stall showing "updating". All apps are unable to actually update. It shows it is loading for forever.

What can I do to fix this?


texts: Weird, but true: iPhone earphones stop working when I walk into a particular room

texts:
When I walk into our master bedroom, about half the time, my earphones on my iPhone stop working.  That is, the podcast continues to play (I'm usually using Castro, but it's hard to imagine that's the issue), but I'm getting no sound from the earphones.

It's not the particular phone. It happened with my previous phone (an iPhone 5) and it's happens with my new iPhone SE.

It's not the earphones. I've had this problem with the stock ph earphones nes, a cheap pair of drugstore earphones, and pair of nice $40 third-party earphones.

It's not what I'm physically doing. I keep the phone in my left pocket and on bud in my right ear. But I can do all kinds of activities -- cleaning, laundry, yardwork, whatever -- without this happening.

It feels like there's something about the room itself that causes this to happen. If it happens, it usually happens as soon as I walk through the door of the bedroom.


texts:
I cant get the watch out of power mode.  It has a lightning bolt on the screen.

What does this mean?


texts: Early 2011 Macbook Pro DisplayPort 1.2 driver

texts:
So I searched a bunch, lots of threads on this, but unfortunately either they haven't been resolved, or its not helpful.

I have a Macbook Pro (early 2011) model w/ the Intel Core i5. It is currently running OS X Version 10.9.5, and I just recently purchased a second monitor for it (Dell P2014H). I am using a Mini DisplayPort to Display port cable to connect this monitor to the laptop, and it is working.

However, the Macbook is restricting the resolution to 1360x768, it's not using the 1600x900 that I would like. If you set it to that resolution, the 2nd monitor blacks out, and goes to sleep. After a lot of troubleshooting (resetting PRAM, SMC...), I borrowed a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter from a friend, and I tried that. That worked with the proper resolution, no problems.

Now, I am guessing that this is occurring because of DisplayPort 1.2 that the monitor uses, and the macbook does not work with that. Unfortunately Dell does not make a driver for OSX. I could also not find any drivers online. Does anyone have/know where I can find a driver, or know another method I can use to fix this resolution issue (other than buying a vga or dvi adapter)

Thanks in advance!


texts:
The "Internet Radio" feature to stream from hundreds of suggested URLs around the world, and allowing me to add my own URL for a stream, is gone from iTunes 12.7.

Did Apple move this feature to a different place in the user-interface, yet again?

Or did Apple remove this feature altogether?


texts: Mirroring two displays with different screen sizes

texts:
I have an iMac 20" mid-2007 and an external 23.6" 16:9 aspect display, I would like to mirror displays keeping a 16:9 aspect on the external display, eventually stretching the image of the built-in 8:5 aspect display.

Is it possible?

Thanks


texts: how to make each display a separate space, yet have a keyboard shortcut to move both screens at the same time?

texts:
In OS X Mavericks, each display (ie monitor) has it's own space. There are many advantages to that.
But then there are also advantages to the old way of doing it; i.e i want both my  [monitor 1  - space 1] & [monitor 2 - space 1] to be for my Xcode app. And the [monitor 1 - space 2] [monitor 2 space 2] for my chrome  and so on so forth.
The Preferences offers you the option of going either the old way or new way via the Display have separate spaces option:

However I want the best of both worlds: I want each screen to have its own space.. but then I also want a keyboard shorcut where I can move both screens at the same time. How is that possible?


texts: Can a Late 2016 MacBook Pro drive a 4K monitor with HDR?

texts: I'm quite tempted by some 4K HDR external monitors that are slated to come to the market soon. Question is - can a Late 2016 MacBook Pro drive 4K HDR monitor at 60Hz? 4K monitors are supported as per Apple doc, but it doesn’t mention HDR at all.


texts: iPhone 6 stolen. Did I accidentally cancel my pending data erase by removing account from iCloud too soon?

texts:
I lost my iphone 6 maybe 2 hours ago and proceeded to do some damage control by accessing the Find My iPhone feature on iCloud. In the following order in the span of maybe 10 minutes, I turned the iPhone on Lost Mode, selected the  remote wipe, and selected "remove device from account." I also called my carrier to make sure the account with that phone is cancelled.

However...my iphone has been OFFLINE the whole time, including the time it was stolen. Since I selected the "erase data" and "remove device from account" fuctions while it was offline, will the data still be removed? I read somewhere that removing the device from the iCloud account might cancel the pending iphone data wipe. Does that mean the thief will have access to my phone and all its files? Or will my phone wipe automatically since I selected the "erase data" function? I just want to make sure the thief won't be able to access any of the data on that phone.

I appreciate the help. Thanks!


texts: Reinstalling OS X on a MacBook with dead hard drive and no recovery disc

texts:
So I got a MacBook (non pro) from a friend but the HDD is dead. After replacing it, I had no way to restore OS X and my friend can't find the recovery/reinstall disc.

The model seems too old for Internet recovery (A1181 Core Duo, not C2D) and DIY recovery tool on Apple's site says the Mac must have a "recovery hd", which I assume I don't have since the HDD is blank.

Any alternatives? Is there a way to find the license using the serial of the machine?


texts: How do I delete facetime calls from my Mac?  Since the Sierra OS update I can not delete calls. I used to highlight then delete.


texts: Messed up color profiles in Mountain Lion

texts:
For some unknown reason, my color profiles are messed up in way that whenever an application (e.g. pixelmator, Preview, Xcode, etc.) tries loading Adobe RGB 1998 color profile (probably any other color profile too for that matter), that application will crash miserably.

I sent a report to apple, but so far have received nothing. What pixelmator support told me, is that for some reason "ColorSync Utility" won't show up Adobe RGB 1998 profile under "System" section, although AdobeRGB1998.icc file is in "/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/".  Therefore applications that try loading it will fail to do so, resulting in a crash:

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   com.apple.CoreGraphics          0x00007fff8ffc25a2 color_space_create_adobe_rgb_1998 + 23
1   com.apple.CoreGraphics          0x00007fff9019abf1 CGColorSpaceCreateAdobeRGB1998 + 22
2   com.apple.CoreGraphics          0x00007fff8fddf6dd CGColorSpaceCreateWithName + 828
3   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b07b9a7 +[NSColorSpace specialColorSpaceWithID:] + 83
4   com.pixelmatorteam.pixelmator   0x0000000100089c7e 0x100000000 + 564350
5   com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff8eeba47a _CFXNotificationPost + 2554
6   com.apple.Foundation            0x00007fff8ac5a846 -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 64
7   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b0cb60d -[NSApplication _postDidFinishNotification] + 292
8   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b0cb346 -[NSApplication _sendFinishLaunchingNotification] + 216
9   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b0c8532 -[NSApplication(NSAppleEventHandling) _handleAEOpenEvent:] + 566
10  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b0c812c -[NSApplication(NSAppleEventHandling) _handleCoreEvent:withReplyEvent:] + 351
11  com.apple.Foundation            0x00007fff8ac7412b -[NSAppleEventManager dispatchRawAppleEvent:withRawReply:handlerRefCon:] + 308
12  com.apple.Foundation            0x00007fff8ac73f8d _NSAppleEventManagerGenericHandler + 106
13  com.apple.AE                    0x00007fff8dfa6b48 aeDispatchAppleEvent(AEDesc const*, AEDesc*, unsigned int, unsigned char*) + 307
14  com.apple.AE                    0x00007fff8dfa69a9 dispatchEventAndSendReply(AEDesc const*, AEDesc*) + 37
15  com.apple.AE                    0x00007fff8dfa6869 aeProcessAppleEvent + 318
16  com.apple.HIToolbox             0x00007fff922028e9 AEProcessAppleEvent + 100
17  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b0c4916 _DPSNextEvent + 1456
18  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b0c3ed2 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 128
19  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b0bb283 -[NSApplication run] + 517
20  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8b05fcb6 NSApplicationMain + 869
21  com.pixelmatorteam.pixelmator   0x0000000100002854 0x100000000 + 10324

I am wondering if anyone else has had this, or a similar problem, and what is your suggested fix?


texts:
My girlfriend and I have traveled to Singapore and her iPad has gotten stolen.

We can't seem to find her iPad serial number anywhere (she never plugged it into her computers as it was backed up through iCloud and it charged faster through the socket), and she's binned the box it came in from.

Apple's support website doesn't show it under her Apple ID either. We've also tried going through other possible emails, but there's only the one.

It does, however, show under Find my iPhone on the iCloud website. Is there a way to retrieve the serial number through here?

We need it so that the police here can match it to a database of lost and found devices.


texts: How should I use the terminal to browse and manage my iPod Touch? I mean is there any way to do this just with terminal, not with installing MobileTerminal or something like that, or sshing into the iPod.


texts:
Most apps come packaged in a .dmg file, where once mounted all you have to do is copy the .app, special directory to you Applications folder and that's it. Nice and clean, if you ever want to uninstall the app, you just remove it.

However, what about .pkg files? I know there are some commercial solutions, but really, that's not to satisfactory.


texts: MacOS Sierra how to properly disable iCloud Drive?

texts:
I got iCloud drive which hang in the middle of an upload, this is the 3rd day I'm looking at 6.52GB of 6.52GB. The task seems to eat my CPU and bandwidth and makes using the Mac an ordeal.

How to properly disable iCloud drive once enabled?

What will happen if I click the blue remove from Mac button - will this erase my documents and desktop?

Can I click stop updating and turn off? Will this keep my computer as-is?


texts: Text editor to search/replace newlines and tabs

texts:
A time-saving feature I often used while editing large text files (the kind used for batch processes of data exchanges, aka, "flat files" for feeds  between multiple systems) was Notepad++'s extended Find/Change function where you can specify certain characters (such as tab, space, line feed, carriage return) in both the Find function and the Change function.

This is the detail on how it works:

  Open the find/replace dialog. At the bottom will be some Search mode
  options.  Select "Extended (\n \r \t \0 \x...)" In either the Find
  what or the Replace with field entries, you can use the following
  escapes:

  \n   new line (LF)
  \r   carriage return (CR)
  \s   space character
  \t   tab character

This would make it very easy to edit lists of information, changing files from comma to tab delimited, or files with spaces between into comma delimited, as well being easy to go from spaces to tabs (or visa versa).

Anyone happen to know which text editors running on Mac OS have this feature (or have plugins to add this functionality)?


texts: Changed Lion Server's host name and now unable to browse to that site

texts:
(Without thinking much) I set up my Mac mini server and used an actual domain name I use as the computer's host name.

I've since changed the host name to something that isn't an actual website, but I'm unable to navigate to the original hostname/domain. I've tried changeip in the terminal as well, as well as flushed DNS in case it was cached there as well.

How do I get Lion to reach out to the WWW to find this domain?


texts: is there any way to adjust the brightness of the Apple Cinema Display in 10.11 (El Capitan)?

texts: I saw the answer for 10.10 and 10.9.  Sadly I just jumped from 10.8 to 10.11 and discovered that my beautiful and perfectly well-functioning (last night) display is not kaput (too dark). Can it be made to work in 10.11 or do I have to find a copy of 10.9 or 10.10 somewhere and try to revert to that?  I did backup my mac before the upgrade, but still.  ARGH!!!!