iPhone Apps in Waiting mode for the last 4 days I tried to download the "Dictionary Free" app from the App Store four days ago, but it's been stuck in "Waiting" ever since. I've tried everything: rebooting the phone, restoring from an iTunes backup, side-loading the app from iTunes, but nothing has worked.

When I turn Airplane Mode on and then off again, I get an alert popup that says "Unable to download application. It will be available for download when you log in to the iTunes Store on your computer".

I've tried what it recommends, but nothing seems to work.

The springboard has several mechanisms to prevent this from being a permanent situation, but sometimes it falls down. Normally you can cancel a download cleanly. I generally follow this advice to "help" the springboard finish or abort the download transaction:

(just use the X to cancel the download) - How can I cancel an app installation on the iPhone?
(reboot the phone) - Why are my updating iPhone apps "waiting..." forever?
(reboot with airplane mode and sync) - How to fix apps "waiting.." forever after sync?

However, you could have your springboard stuck and a restore is needed. This is discussed here:

(last ditch efforts and restore as new) - How can I remove this half-downloaded app from my iPhone?

With the information you provided, it's difficult to tell which of the two causes is happening on your phone.

Looks like your problem issue was solved by itself but next time here's one thing you can try: jailbreaking.

At very least you'd be able to ssh into the system and try to see what's wrong and perform a high number of tests if you're willing to go deep enough into the rabbit's hole.

For the record, I've had similar issues while installing apps, except they never lasted for even 1 day.


Is it safe to Symlink your applications folder? If you had a NAS and you were going to store all your applications on there, would it be safe to - on the computers accessing it - replace their application folder with a symlink to the folder on the NAS?

It would be possible to use the NAS as your applications folder, however you would not be able to create a symlink, as symlinks do not work across different partitions, or network shares.  You would instead mount the share as your applications folder.

There are other considerations you may want to be aware of, the first of which is that most NAS shares using windows file sharing would (samba, cifs) do not use a unix style permissions system, so there may be some issues with application permissions.  This could be handled by using a NAS that allows you to export shares using NFS which allows for more compatible permissions on the files.

The second issue is that of network connectivity.  If there is a problem with the network, your applications folder will disappear, and this could cause instability with your systems.  To overcome this issue, you may want to only mount the users applications (/Users/username/Applications) over the NAS, and not the system applications (/Applications).  This way important applications such as Finder, etc will be local, and other applications can be installed to the users applications folder.  Be aware, that most shortcuts point to the system applications, not the users applications folder (e.g. in Finders Sidebar the applications folder shortcut usually points to the system applications folder, and applications purchased via the Mac App Store install to the system folder too).  Users may still have problems with certain applications when there are network issues, however it will not effect the whole system.

The third issue is your question seems to imply that this applications share will be mounted by multiple users.  This may cause some issues, but applications are not supposed to store user data in the application itself, so you should be fine, however not all applications follow all the guidelines 100%.

To mount a share as your applications folder use the command: 'mount shareIpAddress:/pathToShare /Users/username/Applications'  for further information on automating this, you might want to read the Apple document: http://images.apple.com/business/docs/Autofs.pdf


iOS 9 Removing Camera Access From Lock Screen Some guy took my Son's iPhone and took 1,200 photos within 12 minutes. He was able to use the camera from the lock screen without having access to the locked phone.

These photos completely wiped our family's Photo stream (and replaced our vacation photos with nonsense). Also, the storage was filled and my son couldn't even make a phone call before we deleted the 1,200 photos.

Deleting the photos was even more annoying. Can you imagine the tedious process of deleting 1,200 photos on an iPhone?

This was very annoying, and also a usecase Apple may not have thought of.

Somebody mentioned that you can disable control center on lock screen. (Settings>Control Centre>Access on Lock Screen). To my surprise, this brings back a camera button on the lock screen. So that didn't work.

An old post suggested that the only possible solution would be to completely disable camera and FaceTime. But this is not really a solution (would be comparable to painting the camera lens black).

Back to the question: In iOS9, how do I disable camera access on the lock screen?

Related (but not quite the answer):

Removing camera button on iPhone lock screen – (Feb 2015, AskDifferent)
How do you disable the camera from lock screen on iPad? – 2014, Apple Support Forum
I WANT TO DISABLE THE LOCK SCREEN CAMERA – 2013, Apple Support Forum

It's looking like you cannot suppress the photo icon from the lock screen and iOS 9 has no difference in behavior from iOS 8 (so this really looks like a duplicate question to me since iOS 5 in fact...) unless you disable the camera entirely - lock screen or not using a MDM profile or restriction in the settings app.

Removing camera button on iPhone lock screen

The only countermeasure to that malicious behavior would be to not let the camera participate in iCloud photo stream so that once the camera had filled up the storage on the phone, the phone storage would be filled.

Bulk deleting images is something that's easy with a Mac and the Image Capture app.

In my opinion, this is a bug, and Apple should allow a restriction to prevent use of the camera from the lock screen. You could cut off the camera entirely using restrictions or an MDM profile, but that would prevent all use of the camera and not just from the locked state.

I would reach out to iCloud support and explain the data loss - they can point you to the upload restrictions and possibly tune them using your actual bad experience with Photo Stream.

Jailbreak there's a tweak that can disable it


How Do I Remove Remote Disc from Finder (not in the Sidebar) I've an iMac 10.10.3. When I open Finder and go to iMac under Devices I see my HDD, NAS, etc. But I also see "Remote Disc". I can't eject it (right click->Eject doesn't do anything) or trash it (The item "Remote Disc" can't be moved to the Trash because it can't be deleted).

I have absolutely no use for Remote Disc. So how can I remove it from Finder?

Note: Please note I'm not talking about removing it from the Sidebar. I've already done that.

Regards,

To remove:

Launch Terminal
Enter the following string:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool false

Enter the following string:

killall Finder

The icon should now be gone from both Finder and your sidebar. To reverse and make the icon show again, repeat the steps but run this command in step 2:

defaults delete com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing

The icon is present on Macs which do not have optical drives but may still need access to the physical media from another computer.

Source: Apple Support Forums

You can right click on it and on the menu select Remove from Sidebar


How can I share Photos across multiple users on Apple Photos, without paying for iCloud? Me and my wife have separate Itunes accounts and have separate users on our Mac computer.  Once we upload our photos to our computer to our own accounts we delete them from our devices.

Is there a way that we can view each other's photos without having to switch between accounts?  Since I have tons of photos I wouldn't want to pay for ICloud to have them sync. For example I have tons of pictures of our son and she wants to print some of them.

FYI I am using the new Apple Photos App and we have tons of pictures.

I guess this is what you're looking for:

Enable iCloud's Family Sharing and iCloud Photo Sharing

If you have iCloud's Family Sharing and  iCloud Photo Sharing enabled, you'll see a special album called "Family" in the Shared tab of the Photos for OS X app, as well as the Shared section of the Photos app on iPhone and iPad. This album will automatically sync with all members within your Family Sharing group.
Share your photos

To add photos to the shared stream, select them and click the Share
button. From there, choose iCloud Photo Library, and select the
Family album. The images will then sync over to your family member's
device.

If you need a deeper explanation: http://www.imore.com/how-use-iclouds-family-sharing-photos-os-x

There now appears to be a limit of 5000 photographs on this.


Is there a way to speed up the way Mac responds to my trackpad clicks? I'm new to Mac and Xcode. I realize there's always a significant delay when I click the trackpad and when Mac responds to my action, around 300-500 ms or so, which is very annoying for me. I'm using a new MacBook Pro with plenty of memory and processing power.

Is it a "feature" of Mac? How can I turn if off?

EDIT: OK, I think it has something to do with the "tap to click" feature which I'm currently using. If I press to click, there's no such delay. Anyone has any idea how to fix then?

Do you have trackpad dragging enabled?  If so, it has to wait a moment after you tap in case you tap again and turn the action into a drag -- until then, it can't tell if you want to just click, or click-hold-drag.  The only way to eliminate this delay is to turn off trackpad dragging, so there's no ambiguity about what it should do when you tap.

Goto System Preferences > Trackpad
Change the Tracking Speed, Double-Click speed and scrolling speed as necessary.


My MagSafe to MagSafe 2 converter becomes extremely hot. Why? Out of nothing, my MagSafe to MagSafe2 converter became extremely hot while charging. So hot, I could not even touch it.

What could cause it?

I've been using it so I can leave multiple old 85W MagSafe chargers at various places, so I plug my new late 2013 15" Retina MacBook Pro without having to bring a charger.

Edit:

After inspecting for discoloured parts, I saw the flat side of the aluminium surface is a bit discoloured.

This is what I've done after it got hot:

I cleaned everything a couple of times with finger nails and a wooden toothpick (to prevent scratching: electric stuff doesn't like metal fragments).
The connector kept getting hot.
After turning the connector 180 degrees, it kept cold. If I turned the power plug 180 degrees or 360 degrees, it stays cool too.

Turning 180 degrees was suggested below by mbabineau and seems to fix the issue every time this happens.

Actually it should be RT (room temperature) like all the time.

Check the pins to see if one of them is getting discolored.

The only reson for your converter to get hot is a bad contact creating a arc, that creates heat.

Making sure the plugs sit tight (on both sides) and that none of the contact pins (on both sides) is discolored. Cleaning the pins could not harm.

Ultimately getting a new converter would be a good idea.

I've had my MacBook Air 11" for over three years and just today the magsafe L got hot which is why Im even on this thread. I turned my block plus 180 degrees in the same outlet and it stayed cool, I moved it one outlet over it got hot again, I changed to yet a third outlet and it stayed cool. Im no electricity guru but In guessing its the outlet and not my charging unit. I read a few other threads in other places and some say theirs have always been hot and that its normal, I disagree, its not normal to have anything on your computer too hot to touch. Thanks for the ideas, they worked for me.


Cannot connect to Wireless Keyboard I have an Apple Wireless Keyboard MC184LL/B which I use infrequently, but was using today (on a non-Apple machine).

I attempted to connect it to a new device, unsuccessfully, and now I cannot seem to use it on the original machine or on my MacBook Pro Early 2011 running OS X 10.11. (The MacBook Bluetooth is OK as I can connect to other devices.)

The MacBook sees it, and says "connecting" when I press the pair control, but always fails with Couldn't connect to the device.

I have always found this device frustrating; it came with almost no instructions and there seems to be no on-line manual, although there is a similar keyboard with 3 batteries rather than 2.

When I press the power the green light comes on for a few seconds then goes off.

I possible broke it by attempting to connect without pairing from the new device.

Is there anyway I can reset the keyboard to factory default.

That's actually a feature, albeit a very poorly documented one.

The Apple Wireless Keyboard refuses attempts to be overtaken by a different host without a deliberate disconnect, physical access by the user, a very long timeout or a manual reset.

Your keyboard model is that of "October 2009", the manual can be found here: https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1208/en_US/Apple_Wireless_Keyboard_2009_UG.pdf

Page 6 states that you should disconnect (not unpair) your keyboard before connecting (or pairing) it to another computer.

Once the keyboard is no longer in a 'connected' state, it will happily reconnect to any device it has previously been paired to.

So in order to resolve your problem, you should either take your keyboard back to the computer it believes to be connected to (and explicitly disconnect it there) or try the following in order to disconnect it manually:

open the "Keyboard" pane in "System Preferences" and choose "Set Up Bluetooth Keyboard..." (or search for devices via the "Bluetooth" pane as an alternative),
power off your keyboard by pressing and holding the power button (on its side),
release the power button after the indicator light goes out (your keyboard is now in standby mode),
press and hold the (same) power button for as long as it takes for your keyboard to be successfully connected by your target computer (the indicator light will blink during the course of this step).

In case you release the power button too early, i.e. without fully establishing a connection, the keyboard will simply fall back into the mode it was before – still connected to the other computer, safe from being overtaken. :)

I had to hold down the keyboard power button while pressing Pair on the mac to get this working. Thanks for the tutorial!


How can you wipe and reinstall OSX on a Mac Mini (which has no optical drive)? If you are a new disk and wiping them to setup a DIY Fusion disk, how does the Mini carry on working afterwards... haven't you just wiped the OS? Without an optical drive, how can you clean the disks and still be able to reinstall an OS?

Without an optical drive, how can you clean the disks and still be
  able to reinstall an OS?

Simplest and cheapest way: create a bootable volume from the OS X Installer on a USB Stick.

2 days ago I used the (free) DiskMakerX to clone the 10.10.3 OS X Installer (it works also with older OS X versions) from AppStore to a USB Stick and used that bootable clone to start from it and install OS X on another volume. Everything worked fine.

I have been able to use OS X purchases from my App Store and use for clean install. Assuming you have gotten updates since lion was released? Go to your purchases and option + click the OS you want installed. The limit is naturally set so you cannot load an OS older then your machine.


/etc/hosts gets over written What is the correct way of editing /etc/hosts? I want to add some IP addresses and host names to it. It works for a while (a few hours) and then it gets reverted back to the original version. Is there any process checking the status of /etc/hosts and reverting it back?

I'm on my MBA with Mountain Lion.

For me it's in the file

/etc/pulse-hosts.bak

You have to edit this file to customize your hosts directives

When you are going to reconnect/connect using the Pulse Secure VPN, it's going to merge the directives from the

/etc/pulse-hosts.bak

with the content from Pulse directives and creates the

/etc/hosts

2018 Update

With the newer version of Pulse Secure you have to exit the program first (check your active process).

Modify your host (/etc/hosts) and then restart Pulse Secure.

I was unable to use quickstart cloudera VM after entering into VPN. To resolve this issue i followed below steps.

Step-1 : Add entry in /private/etc/hosts for e.g.

  127.0.0.1 quickstart.cloudera

Step-2 : Enter into VPN for e.g. I am using F5 VPN

Step-3 : Verify above mentioned entry in /etc/hosts using below command

  cat /etc/hosts

I hope that it will be useful.


Restore Things to iPhone from iTunes I ended AT&T service with my iPhone, but would still like for it to be useful. When the service was ended, Things was in the process of being updated, and I deleted it from my iPhone (not iTunes) in the hope of restoring it. I've tried a few things, but while Things is still visible in iTunes, it hasn't shown up in my iPhone.

Is there any way that I can restore Things from iTunes to my iPhone?

If you're absolutely sure that you have SYnced the phone and the app is still not there, you can try to remove it from iTunes too. Then you go to the App Store (make sure you are logged with the SAME account you were when you bought it for the first time) and buy it again, the store will inform you that it's "a free upgrade" and will re-download it. It will not charge you again.

If you have back up your content, you can restore from the backup.

To restore information from a backup, use one of the following methods after connecting your iOS device to the computer with which you normally sync:

Right-click (or Control-click) the device and choose Restore from Backup
If you have a new phone, you can connect to iTunes and it will prompt to restore from your backup
Solution from Apple.com: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766


How to delete an account for a now unused ftp server from finders "connect at login" list EDIT2: I found the solution, see my answer below.

EDIT: The question may be a bit misleading I don't have it in the favorites bar, the problem is that finder always tries to connect to a server when I start my machine or log in.

I once saved an ftp server as a "favorite" in finder (so finder would automatically try to connect to it at startup). I no longer use this service, but finder still tries to connect to it automatically at every startup, I'm not sure how to delete this server from the list of servers finder tries to connect to automatically. How do I do that?

Some things I have tried: It has been removed from favorite servers and I also cleared the recent servers list in the "Connect to Server" menu. This had no effect.

Just hold the ⌘ button down, click and hold on the item you wish to remove, and drag it off the Finder’s window.

Additionally you should try Go → Connect to Server (⌘+K). There you must see a list of your favorite servers. If your server is there, you could select it and hit Remove in the bottom of that screen.

Use the Keychain Access app under Utilities. Delete the latest FTP entry and you're done.


How to keep music in iCloud but not downloaded? I bought an album via iTunes on my Mac. On my iPhone, the album is not stored locally (I need a wireless connection in order to play it). However the album got downloaded onto my iPad automatically.

How can I remove the album from iPad? And of course not delete it from my library?

On your iPad, go to Settings → General → Storage & iCloud Usage → Manage Storage → Music.

From there, you can either Edit or directly swipe left on any artist to delete all their songs. If you just want to delete individual albums or songs, you can drill down by tapping an artist or album, respectively, then swipe left to delete each item one by one.

If you want to go thermonuclear, you can simply swipe left on All Songs. Do note that this operation takes some time to complete, up to several minutes. So just let iOS do its work, and soon enough you should have your storage back.

Once you’re done, in order to keep songs from being downloaded in the future, go back to Settings → iTunes & App Store, then toggle Music Off under AUTOMATIC DOWNLOADS.

Keep the internet connection off and remove it. The album will be removed from your iPad and kept in the cloud.


MacBook Pro can't boot: shows Apple logo then grey screen There is a MacBook Pro from 2012 with Mountain Lion that won't boot. The Apple logo is showing, the spinning wheel and then it just goes to a solid grey screen.

I've tried to hold Cmd+R while booting, this does nothing.
I've tried to hold Shift while booting, this goes to a solid blue screen
I've tried to hold Cmd+Option+R while booting, this does nothing either.

I'd rather not re-install OS X. Do I need to reset the NVRAM?

Try to do a file system check via single user mode.

Reboot and immediately press Cmd+S
Wait for the command line and then type /sbin/fsck -fy
Have a tea. And a cookie.
Have a look in the output. If the HDD is failing you might see something like I/O Error. If you see something like ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***** then you can try to do it once more. If Volume X appears to be OK then you might be lucky.
Type reboot and let it boot.

More info on apple's website.

Good luck!

I had a very similar problem. I went through all the reboot procedures, but still nothing but gray screen. I finally took it to a local mac repair shop, and my FileVault is defective. They turned it off and all is well. They recommend that I leave it off otherwise the same thing can happen, and some cases it wipes out all your data...


OS X spotlight UI bug The spotlight search UI on my mac seems to have broken. It doesn't have a rounded corners. Nothing seems to solve it.

The corners become squared when you have reduce transparency turned on in accessibility.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The corners are supposed to be squared, at least until El Capitan (10.11) arrives in the fall.


Macbook air mid-2011 visual glitch problem I face some problems with my macbook air mid 2011 (HD 3000), some weird visual glitch on the screen (see pictures).
Is there any solution or fix? Does anyone else have the same issue?
I own a Apple care(june 2014).
I have already contacted Apple, they done a Hardware test and the test revealed nothing so they do not believe me completely... And they don't know what to do (seriously) ...
Thank you in advance.
Best regards.
Sorry for my bad English: i am French =).

This appear only during the initialization of the rendering/test

Based on our discussion and some fact finding above:

I would say your hardware is fine /the Intel HD3000, but it could be on its way out!, means it could be dying the slow death.

You can double check and run a stress test for the GPU using this little program, or look for your OSX version.

GpuTest 0.6.1 is a bugfix release for Mac OS X only. The CSV file (for benchmark scores) was no longer generated at the end of a benchmark. This CSV file is stored in the root folder of the current user (_geeks3d_gputest_scores.csv).

However, I still think you have a software (programs) interference issue.
Remember the Intel GPU uses shared memory, so that could lead to a problem you are having.

Finding out which program is interfering could be tricky, but you had to just turn them completely off one at the time.

In your case I recommend:

Use an external monitor (or LCD Television) to:

1-see if it is a problem with the build in display

2a problem with the flat band cable to the build in display

3-actual problem with the GPU chip

try restarting your mac. mine did this all of a sudden, and i found this, tried restarting, and its fine now. mine looked just like your pictures (when i looked at them after the restart). if this doesn't solve it, try mailing it to apple, take it to an apple store, or open yourself (no recommended as this will void the warranty). you may have to buy a new processor, or even a new graphics card. Or just restart :)


Is it safe to turn off Block IPv6 on my Airport Extreme I think I am having issues trying to connect to servers that are using IPv6. Mainly related to local web development.

On this Github Issue relating to my specific problem and they recommend disabling IPv6 on the Mac and while this does fix the issue I would like to turn on IPv6 if possible, as long as it is secure to do so.

https://github.com/composer/composer/issues/4748

I went digging in the Airport Extreme Router to see if there might be some setting causing an issue. I found this setting that blocks incoming IPv6 connections.

I wanted to see if there was a reason that this blocking of IPv6 incoming was ENABLED and found a security bug from 2007. I am assuming it is fixed?

So the questions are:

Is this setting safe to disable on AirPort Extreme routers?
Would this setting be part of the problem causing me not to connect to IPv6 machines?

It has been my experience, that with OS X, enabling IPv6 is not a good idea. I live in the USA and outside of the USA things may be different. The default should be to prefer IPv6 over IPv4. Since most, if not all, of the USA is still using IPv4, one is better of setting your computer to prefer IPv4 over IPv6. With Windows, this can be done by downloading from this site.

The problem is OS X prefers neither. Instead it tries to determine which is better. The result is you end up waiting. Sometimes this can be a long wait. It is my understanding that if you can configure OS X to prefer IPv4 or IPv6, the operating system will ignore the setting. The only reasonable option is to turn IPv6 off.


How can I make applications on OSX open new windows in the same space when opening a file from Finder? OSX 10.8. Pretty simple. Right now when I open a file through Finder, if the filetype is set to be open by application Y, oftentimes OSX finds a space that has an open window of Y, and sends the file into that window in that space. What I want though is, when I open the file, I want a new window for that file, and in the same space.

Per this question, I know that there is a workaround explicitly for Chrome, which is great; ditto this for Finder. But I want this setting to be system-wide. E.g. I want to open a new txt document through finder and have MacVim open a new window with the file in my current space (as it would if it were launching for the first time) rather than locating an open window in a separate space and pulling the file into a tab in that window.

Note, I do have my settings set so that switching to an application does not switch to a space with an open window for that application, which works correctly, but when the application launch takes place through a file opening rather than via the cmd-tab switcher, it still does the find-an-open-window-even-if-in-another-space thing.

Note again, there are two issues here--

I don't like that it switches spaces
I don't like that it opens the file in an existing window rather than in a new window

--and I don't see how you can solve one without solving the other; but it'd be great if either or both could be solved.

Does setting the assign to Desktop:none; work for you.
You can do this from the Applications Dock menu.

Disable the option under System Prefs -> Mission Control -> When switch to an application, switch to a space with open windows for this application

for some application this will not work, because some apps like TextMate open new documents in a new tab, but I’m pretty sure these apps have own options to prevent this!


How can I reset the Safari bookmarks in iCloud? iCloud has duplicated my bookmarks and bookmark folders many times. Now I cleaned all the bookmarks on my Mac but iCloud keeps syncing the old data and the deleted bookmarks reappear. On the icloud.com website, I found no way to reset the bookmarks. The iCloud pref pane doesn't offer any help either. Did I miss something?

According to this detailed Apple Support Forum post the trick is to use Lion 10.7.2 and Safari 5.1.1 to force a flush of the Data.

Simplified steps:

Turn off bookmark sync on all devices except the Mac
Backup current bookmarks on Mac
Correct bookmarks on Safari on the Mac
Move the new bookmarks out of you Safari Library folder
Delete all bookmarks and wait for iCloud to update.
Move the new bookmarks folder back and wait for iCloud to update
Delete all bookmarks on iOS devices and re-enable sync.

It's laborious, but I am fairly certain Apple will release better tools for this process. Considering there normal rollout, they are probably handling these issues in phases. They introduced Photo Stream reset mid way in the Beta, so I am sure they will bring the rest through over time.

If you look for duplicate bookmarks cleaner, want to sort, clean up and organise your Safari here is a great app for it:
https://appssalon.de/bookmarkapp


Why does Office for Mac need Safari and Chrome closed for installation? In an update for MS Office for Mac, the installer asks to close Chrome and Safari — why?

What do those programs have to do with Microsoft Office?

I only have Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Presumably, the Office installer can modify/update the Microsoft Silverlight.plugin (which is installed in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/), which Safari and Chrome could potentially be using.

It's primarily just a precaution against updating files which an application is actively using.

[EDIT]

After further investigation, it looks like it's actually the fact that the installer modifies the fonts in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/ which is the motivation behind requiring that several apps not be running. The following is an excerpt from the XML Distribution script that's in the 16807Office 2011 14.3.5 Update.pkg installer package:

<choice id="fonts" selected="true" start_enabled="false" start_selected="false" start_visible="false" title="fonts-title">
    <pkg-ref id="fonts">
        <must-close>
            <app id="com.apple.Safari"/>
            <app id="org.mozilla.firefox"/>
            <app id="com.google.Chrome"/>
            <app id="com.operasoftware.Opera"/>
            <app id="com.microsoft.Word"/>
            <app id="com.microsoft.Excel"/>
            <app id="com.microsoft.Query"/>
            <app id="com.microsoft.Powerpoint"/>
            <app id="com.microsoft.Outlook"/>
        </must-close>
    </pkg-ref>
</choice>

[EDIT]

Another pair of potential culprits are

SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
and
SharePointWebKitPlugin.webplugin

They are installed by default with Office 2011 under /Library/Internet Plug-Ins. (Note: Silverlight was not an option to install with 2011).

None of the above!!! just force quit Google and that's it!!


Where does the Mac store account pictures? I took a picture to add to my account on Mac.

Now I want to use it on messenger, but I can't find it. On the account config, it's too small. I need to find the original.

Where are the accout pictures stored on a Mac?

Mac OS X 10.5+ stores user's account pictures within the Directory Service with the exception of an account that has not modified their user picture from when first created. When first created an account contains a 'Picture' attribute in their user record that is a path to the image in question. This can be read using the dscl command (dscl . -read /Users/${USER} Picture).

If a user has modified their user picture at any time the account picture (aka cropped version if appropriate), it is stored in the 'JPEGPhoto' attribute of their user record.

Original files can be found at /Library/User Pictures if you're looking for an Apple provided picture, while your personal original files should be found at ~/Library/Images/iChat Recent Pictures/. If the files are ever removed from the iChat Recent Pictures folder, it will not affect your user account's image whatsoever.

If you wish to extract a version of your account picture you can do so by running the following command

dscl . -read /Users/${USER} JPEGPhoto | tail -1 | xxd -r -p > ${HOME}/Desktop/accountImage.jpg

The resolution can vary, depending on the original size of the photo and what version of the operating system you're using when it is saved.

If you are running Mac OS X 10.4, my memory is failing me as I don't recall if the user picture was stored in NetInfo or not.

Building upon all the previous answers here is mine:

dscl . -read ~$USER JPEGPhoto | xxd -p -r > $USER.jpg

Also here is something mostly original I have found:

sudo plutil -convert xml1 -o - /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/$USER.plist |
    vim '+/>j/+3,/>j//<\/d/-1j | .!base64 -D > $USER.jpg' '+q!' -

Even if it is way more complicated it can be useful, because plutil is also available on other platforms. It converts the binary plist with the user info to xml, then uses vim to select the part with the picture and finally decodes it from base64 into jpg.


How to convert .wav to .mp3 and maintain iTunes presence? I have a bunch of .wav files (from synced CDs) that I would like to convert to .mp3 files in order to save space. I found this link which works to batch convert .wav to .mp3, but unfortunately iTunes does not automagically recognize the new .mp3 files.

I would like to know if there is a way to batch convert .wav files to .mp3 files and have iTunes maintain its metadata of those files. (Of course, this all could have been prevented by syncing the CDs as .mp3s in the first place. Oops.)

FLAC to iTunes also seems like it might be useful, but I'm dealing with .wav files and would need to convert them all to FLAC files before using this tool, and I'm not sure how to do that without losing metadata.

Thank you!

Select the songs you want to convert
Use the option under File > Convert > Create MP3 Version

This option is disabled if you are actively syncing a CD.

There is a 3rd party, free app named Adapter that converts image, audio, and video files. It runs in batch mode and worked fine for images. Read about it at the link I provided.


Change location of macOS Notification Center alerts? Is it possible to change where macOS Notification Center alerts appear on the screen?

They currently appear at the top right of the screen with the menu bar:

Alerts appearing in the top right tend to cover up work I'm doing more often than not. They cover up browser tabs, toolbar icons, and window titles.

I would prefer, say, the bottom right corner of the screen.

If moving the alerts is not possible, is it possible to change the screen on which they appear?

Unfortunately, you can't change the screen position of the Notification Center Alerts and Banners. This is a huge gripe of mine as well, and I highly encourage you to complain about this issue to Apple here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

Hopefully they will one day change this. I also have not been able to find or formulate any hacks.

I, too, am annoyed by it covering up controls in my modeling applications, tabs in my browser, etc.

You can move the Notification Center to another screen, however your entire menu bar goes with it. When you have more than one monitor active, open up System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement. Click and drag the white bar inside one of the squares representing your current primary monitor and drag it to another monitor.

For notifications that don't need immediate attention, consider changing the alert style from Alerts to Banners. Banners are automatically dismissed into the notification center where you can find them later.

Good luck, and keep spreading the word that we need to tell Apple to make this experience better.

I can't find a way to move it, but in searching on github, I found this pretty awesome hidden feature that lets you easily disable notifications.

... you can hold option (alt) and click on the Notification Center icon to disable it


Remove On-screen volume display from ipad I want to stop the onscreen volume display from popping up when I change the volume.

The icon is too big and blocks the center of my screen, and stays there for a second or two. I know I'm changing the volume - I'm pressing the buttons!

Is there a way to disable this icon?

There's no way to disable the animation when using the physical buttons. If the icon shows up for far longer than the buttons are pressed, I would suspect your volume button might be stuck or there's hardware / sensor damage inside.

For a workaround, I have an iPad with a similar problem, and I use AssistiveTouch

Device > Volume Control (tap a few times) to dismiss the popup.

If you jailbreak, there's some tweaks that remove this or move it to the status bar.


Finder question: missing expansion triangle in list view I have a list of folders shown in list view mode in Finder. But for some weird reason the regular click to expand triangle button which is present on each folder icon has disappeared. This issue is only sticky in one of the many folders in the system.

Do you know how I can re-enable it back?

Thanks

The window may be using one of the "Arrange By" options. Disclosure triangles are not available in "arranged" views. If that's the case, you can choose View → Arrange By → None or press ^ control⌘ command0.

On Mojave the concept is called "Group" instead of "Arrange". Keyboard shortcut is the same. Menu item is found as follows: View → Use Groups.

Have you tried restarting the computer or logging out and back in?

Try to restart the Finder using

killall Finder

in the Terminal. This application is located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app.


How do I make my iPhone ring for phone calls but be silent for email? As a newbie on an iPhone 5, please how do I set up my phone to give an audible ringtone when I get a phone call, but remain silent when I get an email?

Open up Settings > Notification Center > Mail, then change the Alert Sound to None. This will silence any sounds when you get an email.

By default phone calls make a sound, so there is nothing you need to change for that.

I found that the small switch just top the left of the volume controls on the side of the phone was showing red and so off. move the switch and the audible ringtone etc will sound.


How to sync iCloud contacts with Google? I recently started using the Gmail app on my iOS devices because it has better search functionality than the native Mail app. However, that means that when I'm writing emails the app is using my Gmail contacts and not the local phone contacts, which is annoying. The solution is to keep my iCloud contacts, which currently sync between my Mac and my iOS devices, in sync with Google as well. What is the best way to do this? It appears that I can sync my computer's local contacts using Address Book, but that won't help with my contacts which are stored in iCloud.

I found it quick and easy to go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, & Calendars -> Add Account -> Other -> Add CardDAV Account (under Contacts). Type google.com as Server, then type your Google email as username, password and click Done.

I had to use the application specific-password because I have a 2-step verification security setting with google but apart from that it was the easiest and quickest way I have seen yet.

The major issue is that you need contacts in Google to use google services, like sending Google calendar invitations or sharing docs via Drive, and you need contacts in iCloud to use iCloud services, like Pages or sending an email from iCloud.com. Seeing as the two are in increasing competition with each other, they will not play nicely, nor do they have any reason to. Your best logical bets are to use a third party tool to keep the two in sync, or only update contacts in one place and run a manual export, one-way, from one to the other. Unfortunately, in this scenario, you pay for automation.


No version model of Macbook in 'About This Mac' section What does it mean if there is no version model?

Is it normal? I expect the money year after the words "MacBook Air" similar to this.

I would like to buy this particular Mac, should I worry about it?

It's not normal, but it might be nothing. The next reinstall of the OS or an update might populate that field for you.

As far as I can tell, some time during installation the OS checks with Apple and downloads a localized string to represent the hardware. Since you're not US - perhaps there was an outage or an error localizing the string.

Unless there's other cause for concern - you could try reinstalling the OS - choose US location and language to see if that's related. Try looking up the serial number using the answer of the last link (The Stack Overflow question).

http://support-sp.apple.com/sp/product?cc=G940&lang=en_US

In your case, that's reported as a MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) and you could change the language code to get a localized version.

Some other reading on serial numbers and the OS:

What causes a Mac to lose its serial number?
How can I find the serial number on a mac programmatically from the terminal?
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8058151/how-does-system-profiler-retrieve-the-full-mac-hardware-identifier

Did I understand correctly that you want the Mac Model identifier? It is found in the hardware overview. That is one levelbdown from your image.


Is there a PDF annotation application for OS X that doesn't suck? I am starting to hate OS X. I've tried many PDF applications to read and annotate PDF documents. Skim was good until OS X El Captain. It became useless for annotation (by annotation, I mean drawing lines in the document. I use this way in PDF documents where words are not recognised). Preview has just stopped working 10 minutes ago and I lose a lot of annotations. Is there any sophisticated app that works well on my mac?

Maybe you could try PDFPen. It's a bit expensive thought. A trial is available
https://smilesoftware.com/PDFpen/index.html

For me Foxit Reader does the job.

PDF Expert

This is the one that satisfied what I needed in a PDF application. Unfortunately, it is only available on Apple devices. Check out its features.


Connect a desktop PC wirelessly to a home network via Airport Express I have a desktop computer with a non-Mac OS (it currently runs Windows XP Home Edition, but I'm about to replace/add Ubuntu) which I can't connect to my home network (again, the router is not a Mac product): I don't have an ethernet cable where it currently is and it doesn't have a wireless connection option. I do however have an Airport Express and I wanted to know if it was possible to use it as an "antennae" to set a wireless connection to my network.

I mean, the idea would be something like this:

PC <--(ethernet)--> Airport express <--(wireless)--> Router

EDIT: It CAN be done. I was not allowed to touch a lot of things in the router/network, but I managed to configure the Airport without changing things in the current network. I had to set the IP manually but it is currently working.

This doesn't answer your title, but your question I suppose.
Unless you just have the AirPort lying around without any use, a cheaper solution would be to get a USB Wireless Adapter. You can get those for almost a tenth of the price of an Airport.

No. When Airport Express is connected to an existing wifi network (referred to by Apple as "client mode") it's ethernet port is disabled and it's only use is for AirTunes or printing.

Edit:

I fear my information (and Airport Express box) was a little bit outdated. According to Apple this may work on newer boxes with 802.11n, but not on older ones with 802.11g.

  While in client mode, AirPort Express with 802.11n will be able to use
  the Ethernet port to pass Wi-Fi traffic to a device connected to the
  Ethernet port. However, the original AirPort Express 802.11g doesn't
  support this feature and will disable the Ethernet port. Only
  compatible USB printers or audio devices are supported.

At that it might even work if you have a WDS network and set the Airport Express to "Participate in a WDS network".


Displaying full screen video on only 1 monitor I have a multiple monitor setup. I'd like to be able to play a video full screen on only one of them. It could be Quicktime or a Safari video (mostly Safari/YouTube). Is there any setting to control this at all? Right now the video takes over the screen and the others go black. (Have seen other older answers but no solutions recently.)

Try to disable mirroring in System Preferences > Displays and move application which play video to the screen you want.


Preferences changes using "defaults" not applied I'm a CLI enthusiast and, as such, I've been a extensive user of brew, cask, m, mas, softwareupdate and so on. I've even written some tutorials about them (check here and there).

Right now, I'm diving into defaults to alter my settings.

My problem is that some defaults set in CLI don't appear in GUI. For instance, I try to deactivate "three fingers lookup & data detectors" in System Preferences > Trackpad

Using diff and defaults read, I found that the settings is "TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture" in "com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad".

When the checkbox is checked, "defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture" returns 2. That's the default value.
When it's no checked, it returns 0. That's what I want.

To test this out, I checked the setting in the GUI, then used these commands:

killall 'System Preferences'
defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture -int 0
defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture

The last commands returns 0, which is ok. But when I open the GUI, the checkbox is still checked! Reading the value again still gives me 0...

I even tried logging out after altering the value, the problem remains.

Can someone help?

The preference you wish to set is saved in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost, so you have to add the switch -currentHost to the defaults command

Try the following code with Value set to 0, then set to 2 and see the difference

Value="0"; \
echo "before"; \
: read actual values; \
defaults -currentHost read -g "com.apple.trackpad.threeFingerTapGesture"; \
defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture; \
: close System Preferenes; \
pkill -u "${USER}" \
      -f "^/Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System Preferences$" 2>/dev/null; \
: set value in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/.GlobalPreferences.#Hardware UUID#.plist; \
: where your hardware uuid can be determined with; \
: ioreg -c IOPlatformExpertDevice  -d 2 | awk -F'"' '/IOPlatformUUID/ { print $(NF-1) }'; \
defaults -currentHost write -g "com.apple.trackpad.threeFingerTapGesture" -integer ${Value}; \
: set value in ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist; \
defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture -integer ${Value}; \
: kill the preference cache process; \
pkill -u "${USER}" -l "^/usr/sbin/cfprefsd agent$" 2>/dev/null; \
: wait a second otherwise you get errors on the defaults commands; \
sleep 1; \
echo "after"; \
: read set values; \
defaults -currentHost read -g "com.apple.trackpad.threeFingerTapGesture"; \
defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture; \
: open trackpad preference; \
open "/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane"

gives me

before
2
2
after
0
0

regards

Gerd

My friend, I believe that you might be a mere 'hang-up' or 'HUP' signal away from realising your desires.  Send the System Preferences process a signal called the 'hang-up' or HUP, also known as signal number 1 as defined somewhere in a system signals.h header file. POSIX convention, I believe.

The quick and dirty:

sudo pkill -1 'System Preferences'

What a HUP signal should effectuate in the receiving process is an internal halt and re-evaluation, which usually includes a re-reading of any relevant config files. The process will not terminate, only 'refresh' itself.

Hope this helps.

F.


Can I share my internet connection and redirect clients to my web server? I often share my internet connection with other Macs and devices and want to know if I can redirect client's web requests to my local web server.

Is it as simple as having them use my client's IP address or do I need to set up a proxy or otherwise configure things on my Mac or my client's devices?

If you really want to configure your network in such a way,
here are a few bricks I'd advise to start with:

Install Squid version 3 and configure it in transparent
mode. You may use MacPorts to build, configure and install it.
With MacPorts you would do it with: port install squid3.
Install Apache. With the same Macports, you would have to
do it with: port install apache2.

You will find many documents on the web to help to build this, but I didn't find any one complete and good enough to recommand it.


iMovie picture in picture resizing I am placing multiple video picture in pictures in my iMovie project. Is there a function with which, once I find a size I like for the first one or two, I can then apply that same universal size to every picture in picture in the project?

I'm trying to avoid having to do all 40 odd clips manually and I want to be sure each is the same size, rather than just guessing.

Use the paste adjustments tool. Here is a quick video on how to use it. You're right, it will save you A LOT of time. http://youtu.be/kYWsFwBLNHY


Is there a way to fetch the icon file path of an application using AppleScript? I'm currently writing an Alfred workflow in which I want to retrieve the icon file path linked to an application. Is there any way to do so natively using Apple Script ?

tell application "Finder"
    set appPath to POSIX path of (path to application "Terminal")
    set resourcesPath to appPath & "Contents/Resources"
    set contentFiles to (list folder resourcesPath)
end tell

Doing that I managed to get a list of file names but now I don't really know how to filter the .icns file.

I'm not familiar with Alfred however as far as AppleScript and getting an Application Bundle's Icon's pathname is typically not hardcoded, so it's not like you can get its path with a single command.  Additionally the value of CFBundleIconFile can be with and without the .icns extension, so when building the fully qualified pathname of the Application Bundle's Icon you'll need to take that into consideration as you write your code.

As an example, using the built-in /Applications/Calculator.app the /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/Info.plist shows that the Icon file is "Calculator.icns" but doesn't give the path, although it will usually be within the Resources folder within the Application Bundle and in this case it's, /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/Resources/Calculator.icns.  So you'd have to get the value of CFBundleIconFile from the App's .plist file and check whether or not it has the .icns extension and test to see if it's in the default location, which it normally is but not always.

So in Terminal you'd query using defaults, e.g.:

defaults read /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/Info.plist CFBundleIconFile

In AppleScript you could set the results to a variable and go from there, e.g.:

set appIcon to do shell script "defaults read /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/Info.plist CFBundleIconFile"

It returns: Calculator.icns

Where as,

defaults read /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/Info.plist CFBundleIconFile

Returns: Terminal

Yet the FQP is /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/Resources/Terminal.icns

Try:

do shell script "find " & quoted form of POSIX path of (path to application "Terminal") & " -iname \"*.icns\";"


macbook doesn't recognize internal HDD, only when connected via USB yesterday something weird happened. After my 13' macbook pro ( early 2011 ) was running all night while playing music, in the morning I just closed it and went home from my friends house. When I got home and opened it, it just froze completely, so had to shut it down with the power button. After turning it back on, it just showed me this folder with a question mark. When I tried to do internet recovery, I couldn't, because no HDD was visible. So I couldn't do anything at all, even in DISK UTILITY computer wouldn't show any disk at all. So I took the lid off and disconnected my HDD and put it in enclosure and connected it to my macbook via USB and booted from there. It booted perfectly fine, as nothing happened.I did time machine back up just in case something will go wrong again. SO, basicly it will boot from USB but not when the HDD is actually inside my macbook. Any advice ? I read some forums and it looks like it could be HDD's controller that failed, disconnected HDD's power source, disconnected HDD's date cable,SMC, NVRAM, or PRAM need to be reset, the drive's indices are corrupt, a logic board problem exists .. Just wondering if anybody had similar problem and could give me some advice. Another thing, my macbook was overheating a lot and after I opened it, there was quite a lot of dust.
Also I want to ask, if I will buy a new HDD ( looking at Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB ), can I get it all look like my old system. Do I just plug in my time machine disk ? Sorry I am not very good at this technical stuff. Thanks a lot for any help.

It's probably the flex cable that connects the hard drive to the logic board. Some of the cables inexplicably went bad in 13" MacBook Pros--happened in my 2009 model. A new cable for my model was $9-$11 for the part at an Apple Store, and I got the tech to waive the labor charge since the part was so cheap. Looks like the cable for the 2011 models is $50 on ifixit (http://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Model-A1278-Early-2011-Late-2011-Hard-Drive-Cable/IF163-026). Not a difficult repair at all if you're already out of warranty and would rather do it yourself, but use a nylon probe tool (black stick, can also be purchased from ifixit or elsewhere) to disconnect the battery from the logic board first and then carefully remove the cable connector from the logic board--don't want to break the logic board side.

As far as overheating goes, the system will shut itself off or put itself to sleep if it gets above a safe operating temperature. If fans are running all the time, it could be something software related (runaway process, web video, CPU/graphically intensive app). If the fan and outtake vents are blocked with dust, could also be a lack of airflow. You can use compressed air (only hold the can upright) to blast out the dust when the bottom cover is off. Or if you take it to an Apple Store just ask the tech to clean up the dust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amg5w0rlwDo

I changed my HDD to SSD at the same time as following James' advice, and had to reset the PRAM (start while holding CMD-OPT-P-R) before the new SSD would boot while connected to the internal SATA cable (repaired with insulation tape) - before I did the reset, it would only work while connected via the USB.


How can I type or input Unicode characters using a code point on the iPhone? I'm aware of the ability to use accented characters by holding down a key until they appear (ie. á ü etc.); however, I'm curious as to how, if possible, one might enter a code point in hexadecimal format or otherwise to output the corresponding character?

UniK - Unicode & navigation Keyboard extension seems to be the closest to a character map and it also functions as a keyboard extension. You actually have to type hexadecimal code points in this app.

I think IOS don't provide unicode Hex Input because it could impact the performance. East-Asia input consumes CPU/memory 100 times more than Latin input from my experiences.


Airport Extreme Name Resolution I have a little issue with my airport extreme. I'm using the device in my corporate network which has two DNS server for resolving intern and external names.

When I do an nslookup "public adresse" (such as www.google.com), everything works fine.

...But, when I try to resolve an internal name, for exemple bardo1, I get:

;;SERVFAIL reply from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX trying next server
;;connection timed out; no servers could be reached

When I try nslookup internalservername my.internal.dns.server everything works thing.

Where is the problem ??? I don't get it.

Is it because apple uses a different way to resolve names then microsoft ?

How can I fix that on the router ? Not on client side...

My PC Config IP: 10.0.1.3/32 Gateway: 10.0.1.1 DNS: 10.0.1.1

Airport Extreme IP WAN: 172.16.1.117 DNS1: x.x.x.13 DNS2: x.x.x.45 domain: mydomain.local

Apple's DNS resolution expects a tiered solution, so you will want to simply point the router and clients to the internal DNS.

That DNS will answer all queries for it's internal responses and refer/forward requests outside it's authority to the outside DNS of your choosing.

In short, you will either need to change your internal DNS or set up a third DNS to know what requests to handle internally and which externally as the AirPort wasn't designed to do that choosing for you.

Here's how you would set up OS X server DNS to do forwarding - it's a simple pane where you place the external addresses.

Try swapping the order of the DNS servers on the AirPort Extreme.


Any Way to Remotely Control (or at Least View) an iPad without Jailbreaking? There must be thousands of people in the same situation as me, so I find it hard to believe there isn't a solution.  But I've looked all over and have come up dry.

My elderly Dad got an iPad and is having trouble with it.  He's no dummy, but iOS is new to him and he's not good at describing his problem and what he's seeing to me, 1100 miles away.  I'm sure I could help him if I could just see what he sees.

I had installed LogMeIn on his laptop, and could remotely control and view his screen when he had problems.  I know iOS is different and has different levels of sandboxing and other protection from Windows.

But is there any way to remotely view a WiFi-connected iPad, without jailbreaking?  If not, this seems like a great opportunity for an app developer, or maybe Apple if things are too locked down for a 3rd party app.

The only workable solution I have found to the problem is a second device such as an iPod or iPhone running FaceTime or Skype so that you can see and talk with the person you are supporting.

With a gorilla tripod that flexes and something like the glif - this works amazingly well and everything needed has many other uses which does not lessen the impact on one's budget, but does ease the value proposition of this solution.

And - the approved way to get video off your iPad is through AirPlay mirroring which works with bonjour to find an AirPlay receiver on the local network. Currently, Apple TV and a Mac with some software (like Reflector. So if you had a Mac with your Dad or equivalent software on his PC, you could at least see his screen. The two drawbacks to this (in addition to the extra hardware and software) are you can't see where he is tapping and you can't control the iPad remotely.

Use Skype with mirrors, I haven't tried it but its possible


Kernel Problems randomly restarting MacMini Late 2012 I have a MacMini (late 2012) running the latest Yosemite version 10.10.4 and I get ocasional random restarts. Sometimes they occur right after I login from one of these restarts, other times it is stable for quite a while (can be hours or days) and then restarts again.

I have unplugged all external peripherals (Firewire HDD and Thunderbolt HDD) but I am still using dual-monitors: one direct HDMI and the other using mini display to HDMI adaptor.

The only modifications I made was to replace the original internal HDD which was very slow (5,400 rpm) to a Crucial SSD 512GB and I replaced the RAM to by Crucial 2x8GB DDR3 - 1600 as well which I believe they are both highly recommended and compatible with Mac machines. The SSD model is Crucial_CT512MX100SSD1. Could it be something related to the hardware replacement?

The two last kernel errors are here: http://d.pr/n/128a5/b5RQaBL8 and http://d.pr/n/1hF51/3BiwFQ6N

I am up to reinstall the whole OSX from scratch if I need to. This was the only way I found to solve a Divx codec issue in the past in a different machine after exhausting all possible

Any help on this is highly appreciated.

Many thanks to all.

If your issue appeared with 10.10.3, I am 98% certain it is a bug in OS X Yosemite, introduced with the 10.10.3 update and related to Intel HD 4000 GPUs. Welcome aboard. The kernel panics are totally erratic, some users have also graphics glitches. The only common feature is having a Intel HD 4000 GPU.

On MacBook Pros with dual GPU you can avoid the problem by disabling Automatic Graphics Switching (System Preferences > Energy Saver).

Please contribute to the thread in the apple discussion forum and file a bug report (with link to the thread).

I faced the same problem. It done for forcefully shut down any file. To solve the problem press Command Option P N R from your keyboard.


Mac Becoming Extremely Unresponsive After Updating OS (Low CPU Usage) I recently updated my 2015 iMac to the new OS (10.15.7) and at times it becomes incredibly sluggish to the point of not being able to do any productive work. It sometimes takes 20-30 seconds just to click a button; sometimes opening a web page takes minutes. I recently gutted the computer in an attempt to speed it up, and before updating the OS it worked really well. To download XCode I had to download the new operating system, and after downloading it the Mac has slowed down considerably, even though the CPU usage stays very low.
It seems to be getting worse. Yesterday I was able to run the iOS simulator and it wasn't running too poorly, but today the simulator wont even start up. I've tried restarting the computer. I just don't understand why my mac has become so sluggish even though the CPU isn't being fully utilized whatsoever.
Why would my mac run slow if the CPU usage is very low?

There are a number of possible reasons for sluggishness after an OS update. The OS update is usually not the cause, but often the 'catalyst'. The chain of events leads many to believe incorrectly that "the OS update killed my Mac".
1. Hard disk failure.
Installing a new OS involves writing several GB to the disk. If your hard drive is several years old, then this work may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. A disk may continue to 'work', but be slow.
Low CPU usage but poor performance does sound like a disk problem.
2. Incompatible software.
Older third-party software may not work well with the new OS. This is particularly true for things that 'get their hooks' into the OS, running background processes or low-level IO tasks. Things like hardware drivers, system monitors, or anything that changes the behaviour of the OS are usual suspects. Look in /Library (and <user>/Library) folders such as LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons; also Login Items in the Users & Groups System Preference pane.
You can test this by performing a Safe Boot , which will start your OS without any of these third party software. Restart normally after testing. Performing a Safe Boot will also clear some caches, which may help. (Though wildly emptying all caches will in fact cause some slowness as the OS attempts to rebuild them all!)
Another useful test is creating a new user account and logging into that. If things works well there, then you know the problem is something in your original user account, and not the OS itself or the hardware. The problem may be a corrupt or incorrect user preference file, user-triggered third-party software, or something else based in the user Library. Go back to the old user account, and start isolating the problem.
Don't just migrate to the new account: this may cause permissions problems with files; and if the issue crops up again, you'll have to move on again!
3. Spotlight/Cache rebuilding.
After an OS update, the computer will spend some time re-filling caches and re-indexing Spotlight. You should see some evidence of this in Activity Monitor, such as high CPU for processes like mdworker. But this activity should subside after a couple of hours or so. (It may run into the night, but should be finished by the next morning.)
If it seems to be stuck, you can force another rebuild of the index, though this obviously will also take some time to complete.

How recently?
That would be a good first question.
I have a mid 2015 MacBook Pro and installing Catalina (a couple of months ago) has resulted in slowness during the first few days (seemingly because the system was still updating things in the background, Spotlight and the like) but that cleared up.
Since then it has been less stable than Mojave. I have noticed that it locks up more often (requiring a cold reboot) Sometimes the lockups on last 15-20 seconds and it does come back to life. Sometimes.
Catalina is not a good version of macOS.
I did find that running a "cleaner program" helps a bit. the one I use is Onyx it is free and does the trick, at least for me.
I would recommend running that and turning off any startup items, for the time being. That may help.


How does one use different languages in Pages headers and footers? [EDIT]  I'm afraid this language feature is gone in Pages 5.*

How does one use different languages in Pages headers and footers?
I don't need spell checking but language switching (for headers and footers in an automatic language different from the system language)

Google (and forums) says:
"Inspector > Text > More > Language" and create custom style.

But... I have no "language" tab in Inspector -> Text -> More

When I select text I see:

(In OS X/Preferences I already selected multiple languages for spell checking)

System: El Capitan
Pages: 5.6.1

Pages 5 can no longer tag text according to language, to have this feature you must go back to using Pages 4.   For spellcheck, you select the dictionary via Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar.

I'm writing in Polish. In Pages version 5.6:

Select all the text
Go to Edit > Spelling and Grammar
At the bottom of small window you may select your language.

Voila!


Is there a keyboard shortcut to open the filename popover menu in Preview, Pages, etc.? I'm referring to the popover menu that opens when clicking the little down arrow next to the file name in some apps.

I use that extensively—it would be convenient if there were a keyboard shortcut to open it, but I haven't found one yet.

I don't know of one, but you can of course use Command I (Get Info) in the Finder to change the name or assign Tags.

Command + S when you have the file open. In finder maybe Command + space. Those are the only options I know...


I tried updating my iPhone, but now it says "SIM is invalid" I have an iPhone 3GS 32GB. I have just tried updating the phone using iTunes. The phone is second hand, and was unlocked when I bought it. I didn't know that when you try to update it, it loses everything. Now it isn't reading my SIM, even though I've used this same SIM in the phone before I tried updating it. Now, when I turn the phone on, it comes up with:

  SIM not valid - Only compatible SIM cards from a supported carrier may be used to activate iPhone. Please insert the SIM card that came with your iPhone or visit a supported carrier's store to receive a replacement SIM card.

What does this mean? And how can I get my phone working again?

This means that the phone was software unlocked (which requires a jailbreak). Because you updated the device using iTunes, you have removed the jailbreak and the phone is no longer in a state of carrier unlock. This is actually common practice and a great number of people end up getting burned (they either just don't know better or are lied to and told the phone is factory unlocked).

You can call the carrier the phone is originally locked to and have them unlocked it (they may charge a modest fee or if you luck out, do it for free as that particular model no longer being manufactured) or re-jailbreak the device and software unlock it yourself, provided you have a baseband revision of 06.15.00 or older.

Note: Apple can't help in these matters.

sim not supported
the SIM card that you currently have installed in this iphone is from a carrier that is not supported


Control master audio volume with Siri I Can't control my iPad master volume with Siri, and I'm surprised about that.

Is there a way to do this control via Siri?

It's not possible and it's an oversight that makes hands free impossible.

What about 'Hey Siri, set volume at 50%', and while they're at it 'Hey Siri, turn speaker on'.

The excuse of volume being too hard are weak.

After asking Siri myself, I've found your answer.

Siri cannot change the volume of your iOS devices.

That much is fact, however my theory regarding why Siri is unable to do change such a simple control is pure speculation; I believe Apple didn't implement this functionality because it would be awkward and hard to use.

Here's the scenario: You're playing music on your iOS device and you want to turn down the volume. You ask Siri to turn down the volume, to which Siri carries out. At this point, one of four things can happen:

Your music is still too loud
Your music is at the perfect volume for your taste
The music becomes too quiet
You are listening to music then someone in your house hold says 'Hi Siri, Turn the volume up'. This would then turn your volume up without you telling it to and it could be too loud for you

How would Siri know what volume you want your music to play at? How can she distinguish what would be the perfect volume to play your music even if you gave a general instruction for her to turn it down or up?

Sure, you they could have programmed Siri to lower the volume down one "tick" at a time, but that opens the door to you constantly asking Siri to lower the volume. Same goes with larger increments of volume change in that you couldn't get the volume "just right" using Siri.

Too much uncertainty involved with attempting to provide desired result most likely turned the Siri designers away from implementing the feature.


How do I restore iOS safari history/determine when it was cleared? I need to either: restore a deleted iOS Safari history; or,
find the date/time that the Safari history file was cleared.  Can anyone direct me to simple directions to do either/both of these tasks?

There isn't a simple way to do this since the system doesn't record an audit log of changes to safari that would allow you to easily detect the when and more importantly the what changed from moment to moment.

Theoretically, the file system would have a last modified date (that can easily be changed) to indicate the last time the file was saved - but you would either need some forensics skills to build up a history and a snapshot of the filesystem going back in time - like Time Machine might provide you.

Since Time Machine doesn't exist on iOS - your best bet is to restore the entire phone from your backups and test to see if the history is correct. This is similar to building a new house because you want a new cabinet drawer in one bathroom, but there just isn't an interface (at least built by Apple) to automate what you ask.


How to disable "look up" context menu in Google Chrome OSX 10.10+? This is a distinct question from Is the "Lookup in Dictionary" context menu option hardcoded in Google Chrome for Mac?

I want to get rid of the "Look Up x" contextual menu in Chrome:

How can it be done?

Unfortunately it cannot be removed. It was marked as WontFix because it's part of the MacOS convention. It has been officially answered here: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=543891

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but maybe you should switch to command + c to copy if you want to avoid it. Thats what I migrated to and I almost forgot "Look Up" was even there. It'll eventually become a reflex.


How to sync an additional folder to iCloud Drive similar to how macOS Sierra does it? I want to add my Downloads folder to my iCloud Drive so that it can sync just like Sierra syncs with the Documents and Desktop folder.

Can this be done?

Similar answer to one of the others, but in this case I've used a symbolic link to do this rather than use the GUI to create an apple 'Alias', just to be sure it works in all cases.

Rather than add the original Downloads folder into iCloud, I've relied on the standard 'Documents and Desktop' sync option provided by Apple in iCloud without messing around in the background where those files are accessible (~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/) as I'm not confident that adding links in there is a good idea long term.

In terminal (or iTerm2 if you want a more customisable terminal):

Create a 'Downloads' folder in your 'Documents' directory (if you haven't already): mkdir ~/Documents/Downloads
Copy (or move as with this example) your files from the old (presumed to be in ~/Downloads directory to the new Downloads directory: mv ~/Downloads ~/Documents/Downloads
Delete your old Downloads folder (this should require your password, and presumes you are logged in as an administrator): sudo rm -rf ~/Downloads/
Create a symbolic link to your new Downloads folder: ln -s ~/Documents/Downloads ~/Downloads

All those commands again, but without all the extra words :)

mkdir ~/Documents/Downloads
mv ~/Downloads ~/Documents/Downloads
sudo rm -rf ~/Downloads/
ln -s ~/Documents/Downloads ~/Downloads

You will probably have to drag the new Downloads link (or folder) in Finder to the Favourites section/left menu if you want it to display there once more.

preferences>icloud>options and check the box for "Desktop & Documents Folders"

Drag "Downloads" onto the desktop.

Done!


Shortcut for toggling between different windows of same app? I opened two Google Chrome windows (because I am using multiple Gmails) and when I do the Cmd ⌘ Tab ⇥ shortcut it just shows me other applications that I opened but does not show me the other Chrome windows that are already opened.

How to switch to the other Google Chrome window that I opened using keyboard shortcut?

UK Keyboard
[see below for other languages]

 Cmd ⌘   `

 Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧    `  to go the other way.

Left of z on a UK keyboard [non-shifted ~ ]

Note: This only works if all windows are in the same Space, not if they are spread over multiple Spaces, which includes fullscreen. To overcome this, use Cmd ⌘Tab as usual and on the icon of the application you want to switch windows in press the down arrow key (with Cmd ⌘ still pressed). Then use left/right keys to navigate to the desired window across spaces and desktops.

You can also achieve this by clicking the app's icon in the Dock - this method will also switch to fullscreen windows, which the other methods will not..

From comments - You can check which key command it is for your language by switching to Finder, then look at the Window menu for 'Cycle through windows'...

BTW, specifically in Chrome, Safari & Firefox, but no other app I know of on Mac,  Cmd ⌘   (number)  will select individual tabs on the frontmost window.

It also would appear that  Cmd ⌘   `   is yet another of those language-specific shortcuts; so if anyone finds any more variants, please specify for which language & keyboard type.

If anybody finds new combos for different languages, please check Keyboard layout here - Apple KB: How to identify keyboard localizations - & add that as well as which Input Source you use in System Prefs > Keyboard > Input Sources.
Add a keyboard picture from the KB page too, if that would help.
That will make it easier for future Googlers.

Further info:
You can change the keys in System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Keyboard...
though it doesn't list the reverse direction, it does still work when you add shift to that new combo. I tested by moving mine from  `   (and  ~ ) to  §  (and  ± )

You can use the alternative of  Ctrl ⌃   F4  [visible in the prefs window above] but that almost indiscriminately marches through every single open window on all Spaces, without switching to the correct Space each time. It's really not too useful unless you use a single Space, just included here for completeness.

cmd + number works for me, just make sure that your caps lock is not "on". I am using macOS Sierra 10.12


OS X Mavericks vs Yosemite Performance I am using a 2013 MacBook Air and considering to upgrade from 10.9 to 10.10. Is there a performance gain after the upgrade? Is Yosemite faster than Mavericks, say, regarding UI responsiveness?

Quick answer: NO. Yosemite isn't faster than Mavericks.
I don't say that the performance is worse. The oldest is the computer most noticeable is the difference. But, on a 2013 computer, it should be the same, or nearly the same, on both machines. Anyway, there are things you can do to improve it (How to Improve OS X Yosemite Performance).
What I noticed, is that is quite more efficiently on batteries.

I've been running Yosemite since it came out, with the updates and I'm finding that its boot time is unacceptable. I'm seeing 30+ seconds of totally blank screen and then longer with the logo and the progress bar - I'd guess the startup time before I can log in is between 1.5 and 2 minutes.

So - yes, startup is now firmly in the old Windows territory and is completely pathetic when compared to my Samsung XE, Surface Pro 3 and a bog-standard dual core Pentium machine - all of which run Win8/8.1 and all boot to a login within 20 seconds!

I'm seriously considering backing up all my data off the iMac (2012) - and going back to an earlier version - maybe Mountain Lion - until Apple gets their act together!


Cannot unmount external HDD. Only "force unmount" works I cannot use the Finder on my external HDD icon -> unmount. It doesn't work, only force unmount.

I think if I force it, some files can be damaged.

I have closed all programs running on it. With sudo lsof|grep ExternalHddName I wanted to find out the processes using this HDD. Nothing was shown.

1. Should I avoid force unmount every time? In meaning of whether id dangerous.

Update

sudo lsof|grep /Volumes/ExternalHddName should be used instead.

If I use diskutil unmount /Volumes/ExternalHddName I become failed to unmount: dissented by PID=199 (/usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw

Im using the online game on the external HDD. Maybe this socketfilterw has something to do with it. But its active even 20 minutes after I have exit this game.

I have used sudo kill 199, after it unmount was possible.

2. Should I every time I want to unmount this external HDD manually find which process use it and than manually kill this process? I would like to do it in one step and without logout from Mac.

Some online games have "helper apps" that update the game in the background. Try plugging in the drive and then unmount it without running the game. If it does work, then you could make a simple Automator/bash script to unmount the drive (it should consist of the two commands you mentioned above, except that you should use sudo killall <appname> for killing the process locking the drive.

Try to disable firewall? From your post looks like it is a firewall process.


How to remove MDM from iPad iOS 9.1 I bought an iPad, the user had removed the iCloud in front of me. But he did not remove the MDM profile from the iPad.

She did the full reset on the iPad, however the MDM profile is still there how can I remove that or should I return the device?

Open general, swipe up on the right side, find Profiles & Device Management and tap it.

Tap each of the profiles in turn and delete them. The MDM profile should show "Remove Management" in red and explain what it will do. The others should say "Delete Profile"

When that's done, you should have a clean device that you could erase all content and settings. Then see that the device isn't tied to a corporate Device Enrollment system. In that case, you'd want to return the iPad or get a bill of sale indicating that the device will be released from "corporate" control in a period of time.

The DEP can be under education or business - so the steps they take will be similar to release that serial number and not re-enroll it in the MDM each time the device is configured/activated.

https://www.apple.com/business/dep/

If your iPad is locked with another users Apple ID there is no way to remove that profile yourself. The user that you purchased the iPad from will need to remove their Apple ID from that device. That user can login to iCloud and remove that device from their profile. You will then be able to setup your iPad.How to remove the device from iCloud


MacBook Pro (2018) stopped detecting external monitor My new MacBook Pro suddenly stopped recognizing external monitor (Dell U2515H) after 2 days of normal usage.

Yesterday, after I was done with my work, I closed the lid as usual and today, I opened the MacBook and the external monitor didn't get detected.

The monitor is connected via USB-C -> HDMI cable (cost about 20$).

I have already tried restarting my mac, reconnecting the monitor and detect monitors in system preferences.
I have also tried reseting SMC and NVRAM. Unfortunately none of it worked.

Detailed info:

MacBook Pro (2018) - 15", i7
Mac OS High Sierra - 10.13.6
USB-C to HDMI cable
Monitor: Dell U2515H

Any help is highly appreciated as I really need my external monitor for work.

Similar issue with Philips monitor, MacBook Pro 2017 TB, and Digitus USBC-DP dongle. My solution:

Remove the power cable from the external monitor, wait 5-10 seconds, put it back in.

Had a similar problem MacBook Pro 2018, Belkin dock and USB-C HP monitor.

go to System Preferences > Software Updates
install all pending updates
reboot

Now it is working again.


Enable f12 shortcut for firebug I was wondering, how to enable the F12 shortcut key on OS X for Firebug? I don't really use Dashboard, so I'm more than happy to disable it.

You can disable or change the shortcut for Dashboard in System Preferences -  Mission Control for Mac OS X 10.7+. In older versions of Mac OS X the appropriate preference pane should be called Exposé.

After you changed the shortcut, it should correctly activate Firebug instead when Firefox is active.

Why not use ⌘+fn+F12? It works on for me.


How to switch off "natural" sort order in Finder and enable pure alphabetical sort order? I have a set of pictures named as hex representation of UUIDs. I want to see them ordered alphabetically as strings, but regardless what I try, the app shows me it differently:

I have these settings about grouping:

and sorting:

I think I figured out the order it represents. It looks like it tries to cut the longest string of decimal digits from the beginning of the name, interprets it as a number, and orders by this number. Albeit it can be convenient in some cases, it is not desired for me.

Is it possible to switch off this feature in Finder and obtain normal alphabetical sort order?

EDIT: this question shines a light on the sorting algorithm but does not suggest how to switch it to normal string sorting.

Apple's Finder has been using "natural" sort order (where strings of digits are ordered as single characters) for file names for nearly 20 years, since OS X 10.0 There's no way to change it as far as I know. If you want the other kind of sort order, you have to use Terminal or a 3rd party app.

I recall this happening to me, the problem is the button you are referring to is actually "group by" not sort by. I see this as a serious design flaw from Apple, but whatever.

Right-click somewhere on finder. Click "show view options" as seen below.

Click "sort by" and select "name." I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of "group by" is, but it doesn't do what you're looking for.


Finder is very slow in showing the content of server shared folders I'm accessing a Windows File Sharing folder on my home server in Finder on my Mac (OS X 10.7.2) using the SMB protocol. When I'm navigating through the folders, sometimes (most of the time) I have to wait up to 10 seconds until I can see the list of files in the selected folder. Also, there is no visual clue that Finder is fetching the file list, so the first time I got this behavior in Mac OS X Lion, I was thinking the folder was empty.

Even worse, when I'm copying some large files to the server, Finder is delaying the process of getting the file list more or less until the copying is finished.

Is this something I can fix? Or is it a known bug in the Finder/SMB protocol implementation?

In finder make sure you have status bar showing under view options.  You should see a spinning gif animation while the folder is loading.  If you have visited the folder recently the file list should be cached.

Doing option-command-escape and relaunching Finder helps me.


iPhone 5 iOS7 no sound only vibrates when ringing? Here is what I tried...

Do Not Disturb is off
In Settings -> Sounds, Vibrate on Ring is off and Vibrate on Silent is off
The switch on the side is set to silver not red.
The music will play over the headphones and over the speaker.
The keyboard click sound will play over the headphones and over the speaker.
I looked in Settings -> Accessibility and there doesn't seem to be anything in there (however whenever I got the phone the zoom was turned on)

I don't know what else there is to try, but it doesn't play the ring tone when the phone rings.

moving mine in and of the holster moved the ringer button to the off position accidently. Glad it was something that simple....but sure stumped me for a while.
the ringer button is the one above the volume buttons on the left side

Power volume flex cable is damaged, change it


FileVault security hole when used on SSDs I just woke up to the fact that it looks like user data can be leaked when using FileVault and Migration Assistant on an SSD on a new Mac when following the default prompts.

When I set up a new Mac, it encourages me to "Transfer Information to This Mac" early in the process, before I'm allowed to enable FileVault.  This is OK on an HDD because even though I'm copying my data to the new Mac in the clear, FileVault will eventually overwrite all of it with encryption.

On an SSD, however, it's impossible to overwrite data securely:

  ... the Mac's "Secure Erase Trash" function leaves 2/3rds of a file recoverable.

— Mac fail: SSD security

  ... it is almost impossible to securely delete an individual file on an SSD, because the way that SSDs write and delete files is scattered, and a user has no control over what an SSD is doing where. If that's the kind of security you're looking for, your best bet is encryption ...

— Ask Ars: How can I securely erase the data from my SSD drive?

So by the time I'm allowed to enable FileVault, it's too late.  Even worse, I can't securely wipe the drive before selling the computer later:

  With OS X Lion and an SSD drive, Secure Erase and Erasing Free Space are not available in Disk Utility. These options are not needed for an SSD drive because a standard erase makes it difficult to recover data from an SSD. For more security, consider turning on FileVault 2 encryption when you start using the SSD drive.

— Mac OS X: About Disk Utility's erase free space feature (support.apple.com/kb/HT3680)

So it looks like the solution is:

Skip the Migration Assistant when prompted.
Create a new user account.
Run Software Update to completion to generate more entropy before enabling FileVault in order to mitigate this "worst-case scenario, in which
the PRNG has only been seeded with the least amount
of entropy" — Inﬁltrate the Vault: Security Analysis and Decryption of Lion Full Disk
Encryption (eprint.iacr.org/2012/374.pdf), page 9.
Enable FileVault.
Run the Migration Assistant.

I'm assuming that even though FileVault is still encrypting the disk before I run Migration Assistant (my computer tells me it has 36 minutes of encryption time remaining) that all new writes made by Migration Assistant will be encrypted and thus my data will never touch the NANDs in the clear.

Do you agree with the problem and my solution?

Your making a test user account with a short name different than the eventual user to be migrated is sound.

In practice, you will in time over write more and more of the data, but if you have the time to first establish a file vault key and have the drive completely encrypted before copying any sensitive data, you have a more secure system and can know that the data can be sanitized cryptographically as opposed to being over-written or actually erased.

You'll want to look for these lines in the diskutil cs list output to know it's ready for the start of data migration:

|       Conversion Status:       Complete
|       High Level Queries:      Fully Secure
|       |                        Passphrase Required

Encryption After Transfer: Lowest Risk

While you run the Migration Assistant, there is no additional security risk imposed by the encryption beginning after data transfer commences. In fact, this reduces the physical security risk through the following mechanism:

The longer the device is unencrypted, the longer it is susceptible to physical security threats (theft, James Bond), thus the greater the risk.
The longer it takes to transfer the data, the longer the device will be unencrypted. Thus it follows logically, that the longer it takes to transfer the data, the greater the risk.
The full-disk encryption process takes a while. It takes even longer if you are writing data at the same time due to i/o limits and CPU capability, unless you have a supercomputer.
The data transfer process takes a while. It takes longer if it is writing to an encrypted disk; and even a minor difference could be statistically significant in a threat and risk assessment.
Therefore, the faster the disk gets encrypted, the lower the risk; and the faster the data gets transfered, the lower the risk.
And therefore, the lowest security risk is offered by the current procedure: transfer the data first, then encrypt the disk.
This procedure presents lower risk than any procedure that would take more time, especially because as long as the computer is on and the encryption secrets are stored in active memory, the computer is wholly susceptible to a sophisticated threat agent.

Secure Erase Unnecessary with Full-Disk Encyption

Secure Erase provides no benefit when used on an SSD with full-disk encryption, because of how data is stored. But any potential benefit from using Secure Erase on any disk with full-disk encryption, could never be very large because no data would be retrievable without the encryption secrets. If the secrets are obtained by a threat agent, then the whole disk has been compromised.

Without full-disk encryption, files can be recovered from an SSD, sometimes, by a sophisticated theat agent, and not a script kiddie, at least not today. This is different from HDDs where for the past decade script kiddies and five year olds have had the tools readily at their disposal to easily recover deleted data from unencrypted HDDs.


calling open from terminal with smb file path and preview as application opens finder instead of preview I am trying to open a file on an smb share in preview from terminal. The following command opens the containing folder in finder instead of the file in preview.

open -a /Applications/Preview.app "smb://myshare._smb._tcp.local/path/to/file/my_file.pdf"

Update 1: I tried with and without the -a switch. The same thing happens in both cases: finder is opened with the last folder (/path/to/file). Preview is already associated with PDFs, so it should open automatically.

Just use /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/MacOS/Preview /path/to/file.pdf instead of /Applications/Preview.app /path/to/file.pdf and it should work.

didn't you just try "open -a Preview /path-to-your-file.pdf"


mp4 H264 video won't play in iPhone safari I have a video hosted online, and when I try to open it with Safari, it won't play (I got a crossed paly icon). When I put this video on the iCloud drive and open it with the Files app, it plays without an issue (on the same iPhone). In fact, it's a video recorded by that iPhone, exported from the Mac Photos app, and re-packaged from .mov to .mp4 so more devices should be able to play it. Is there some special format for the videos that mobile Safari can play?

MP4 is a container format, while H. 264 is a video compression codec. So to play H. 264 in Safari, you will need a video container like MP4 to host the encoded video.
Settings based on the MPEG-4 format offer a choice of two encoders: H.264 and HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding, also known as H.265). When you add an MPEG-4-based setting to a job, Compressor chooses the H.264 format as the default codec. You can change the codec to HEVC in the Video inspector if your computer is running macOS 10.13 or later. HEVC is a recently established compression standard that supports larger frame sizes (including 8K) and HDR10 metadata for high-dynamic-range video. HEVC playback requires a recent-generation Apple device running macOS 10.13 or later, iOS 11 or later, iPadOS 13 or later, or tvOS 11 or later.


I'm not able to search for specific files in a folder saved on SD card on Macbook air I have a folder saved on my SD card with many different files. When i go to search in my SD card, and search for a specific file in that folder the page shows completely blank & that file does not show up! Even-though the file i'm searching for is in that folder and can be found manually.
Is there any solution for this ?
Thanks

You should try the cool, (and free,) app EasyFind by developer Devon Technologies. It searches for files where Finder can't search well, or can't search at all. I use it at work for searching for files in very complex macOS folder structures shared on Windows servers, and it is fast.
Alternate download site.
Disclaimer: I'm a very satisfied user of EasyFind and other Devon Technologies apps, and have no financial or other involvement in the company.


How can I convert a text selection to upper case in Apple Mail with a keyboard shortcut Apple Mail version Version 6.6 (1510)
OS 10.8.5

Is there a keyboard shortcut for converting the case for a text selection in the message editor? I know I can right-click and access this from the transformations menu

Create ~/Library/KeyBindings/, save

{
  "~=" = uppercaseWord:;
}

as ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict, and quit and reopen Mail. It makes ⌥= convert the selection or the word around the cursor to uppercase.

See http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html or http://osxnotes.net/keybindings.html for more information.


fsck and Disk Utility won't repair Volume: invalid b-tree node size I accidentally wrote some .iso data to a disk through dd by mistake. I cancelled the command after just 2 seconds but that was enough to wipe the first EFI partition (200MB) and a bit of the second partition where OS X and some files I do really like are stored.

The ISO image I accidentally wrote with dd was 600mb in size so the total damage would be a maximum of 400 MB since I dd from sector 0 until I hit Ctrl + C and EFI partition was gone.

I tried running fsck -fy on that partition but it's a no-go.

sudo fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk2s2
** /dev/rdisk2s2
Using cacheBlockSize=32K cacheTotalBlock=32768 cacheSize=1048576K.
Executing fsck_hfs (version diskdev_cmds-557~393).
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Invalid B-tree node size

I don't know much about HFS+ but on any EXT Linux partition I could pretty much recover everything that wasn't wiped by dd, even if overwritten. Here however I don't know where to start. There are some fancy GUI tools but they probably won't do anything else then fsck does.

It can't be that the whole partition is gone because 400 MB (if the whole ISO would be written - but that wasn't the case) out of 400 GB was overwritten with data by accident. Partition table seems to be alright - gdisk on Linux says it's OK and Disk Utility on Mac as well.

Volume was journaled (seems to be a problem for HFS+ utilities on Linux)

Any tips how to rescue my files?

Download Testdisk. You would have to run it from an external disk. It’s a command line tool. It will diagnose problems with your partition table or filesystem and repair them. It’s very verbose so you won’t need any readmes. First recover your OS X partition and then your EFI partition. Comment back if you need any help using Testdisk.

Use DiskWarrior.  Has saved many of my client's disks!


Removing camera button on iPhone lock screen How to remove the camera button on the iPhone lock screen without removing the camera from the springboard

I don't want to allow people without access to take pictures using my phone (pictures are shared automatically by iCloud)
But in the same time, I want to be able to use the camera from the springboard.

I'm searching for a native solution under iOS 8.x or later

The only way this can be done is by using Settings > General > Restrictions to disable the use of the camera completely. A side effect is that FaceTime is also disabled.

There is no other mechanism built-in to do what you want.

There is no native solution for what you want. But to answer your problem of automatically sharing pictures to icloud, you can disable the feature of sharing automatically.


How to sync music videos when iCloud Music Library is enabled? I've just notice that after I subscribe to Apple Music (and enabled iCloud Music Library that comes with it), music videos in my iTunes Library are no longer syncing. That is whenever I added a new music video (manually by adding the file to iTunes and setting the type to Music Video), it no longer shows up in my iOS device – even after I plug it in.

I know that the music videos are not eligible to sync via iCloud. However, that said, plugging-in the device via USB should sync those that are not eligible for cloud syncing, right?

The question is, how can I add those non-iCloud music videos in my iTunes library to my iOS device?

I just got off the phone with Apple I have the same problem. according to the guy i spoke with Apple Music will only recognize music bought from iTunes. it part of their Digital Music Rights or some BS of that nature. im taking all of my music videos and i changed their setting to Tv Show. and re-sync with computer and everything is back

I set mine to movies and created a single title which would be the album name of all the music videos.