Updating iOS always bricks my iPad I have been having terrible problems in uploading my iPad Mini 2 of late.  The upgrade to 7.1 and 7.1.1 have both left my iPad in "recovery mode" - bricked until connected to iTunes where it forces me to reset all my settings and lose all my data.

I had assumed that this was a one off but as it's now happened two upgrades running I'd love to know what's happening in order to fix it for next time - I'm left scared to update!

The upgrade had been downloaded over wifi automatically and the iPad had full charge at the start.  The verifying bubble was then displayed, before the iPad restarted and showed only the connect to iTunes logo.

This is still the case with versions up to 9.3.1 - every iOS update that is applied over the air (downloaded straight to my device) bricks it whilst tethered updates do not.  Does anyone have an idea what is going on?

The situation has progressively got worse for me in that now even tethered updates brick the iPad briefly.  I also tried to do a factory reset without upgrading and had the same problem!  The iTunes updates just keep failing with unknown errors and eventually the device runs out of charge, at which point turning it on again brings the device out of it's bricked state.  I'm guessing at this point this is likely to be a hardware error?

Firmware umbrella may be able to kick the device out of recovery mode after the upgrade:

http://blog.firmwareumbrella.com/

Alternately, try to do the upgrade through iTunes as opposed to OTA.

I stopped doing OTA upgrades on ipad2 and use only tethered because of same issue....no problems now....always backup to computer and never losses data


Does Facetime on Mountain Lion allow you to share your screen? I am trying to figure out a way to share my screen with someone else.  I wanted to see if Facetime had that feature or if there is another recommendation for screen sharing on Mountain Lion.

There is not a way to do this yet in FaceTime.  Here's the link to a forum where they discuss how "neat" it would be to have this feature.  The discussion is a month old, so fairly recent.

As for Screen sharing, if you're on the same network (either routed, through a VPN, SSH tunnel, or direct connection) then you just select the device in Finder, and choose screen sharing (button in the upper right hand corner) in the window that opens:

The computer that is sharing its screen must have Screen sharing turned on (check marked) in System Settings > Sharing:

Note mine is NOT check marked, so this computer would NOT share its screen using screen sharing.

If you want to Screen share and you are NOT in the same Network, use Messages:

Note Screen Sharing (under the video drop down)is enabled (has a check mark next to it).

Try using gomeetnow desktop screen sharing service. It works on both MAC and Windows computers.


Is it possible to take a screenshot in vector format? Is it possible to make screenshots in vector format (SVG or PDF) instead of only in raster formats on OS X?

Solution 1: Using a vector GUI widget API with PDF backend:

Actually, it is possible. Consider the fact that on screen objects are created by a widget API, and if this widget API is based on vector elements and have appropriate vector output backend, then it can output to vector formats like PDF.

Please look at the similar question, which also contains some working samples:

Can I take a screenshot as vector graphics or at a higher resolution
than native?

This needs Gtk+ widget library and Cairo as its GUI display and PDF generation backend, which both are available for Mac OS X. But as few applications in Mac OS X use Gtk+, this is not a general solution. I wanted to show the possibility of creating vector screenshots. If you are a developer, this may be useful for you.

Solution 2: Creating vector mockups:

For general applications, you can create mockups. Here you can find "Free Yosemite Vector GUI for Illustrator", which can be used to create mockups of your GUI. It includes all main UI Components:

http://codemotionapps.com/yosemite-gui/

If you're talking about webpages, you can use the Print to PDF feature of Safari and then open the PDF in a vector program.

This should make it easy to grab some SVG resources or to make a tutorial in a video editing program where you want to zoom in on some webpages without losing quality - for example.


I want install Windows 7 on my Macbook after I formated Snow Leopard I want install Windows 7 on my Macbook Pro after I formatted Snow Leopard.
The Macbook is now empty with no OS on it.

How can I install Windows 7 on my MBP that has a formatted hard drive?

You need to boot from the OS X install DVD which was bundled with your Mac (start the Mac with pressed C while the DVD is inserted). Launch "Disk Utility via "Utility" in the menu bar and create a partition which is "MS DOS FAT" formatted. If its done replace the DVD with the Windows install DVD and boot again with pressed C button. After the Windows install assistant has started, reformat the partition to NTFS and continue installing Windows.

Be aware that Windows OEM versions won't work. It must be a retail version.

You have to format your drive and partition to NTFS.

The challenge is, of course, that in order to format, you need to be able to boot the computer. You make reference to the computer once running Snow Leopard. If you have the Snow Leopard install disc, you can boot from that, then run Disk Utility and use it to format the hard drive to get it ready for Windows.

Select a primary drive to install window.


What is the "wake for wifi network access" setting in energy preferences? Can anyone explain the "wake for wifi network access" setting in energy preferences for me?  I do not understand it.

Wake for wifi network access (aka Wake on Demand but with Wifi) allows your computer to be brought out of sleep mode when someone else on the network requests access to a service on your computer eg. File sharing.

From this Apple KB article

  Wake on Demand helps you save energy and reduce costs while still
  ensuring full access to all your shared files and devices, even
  remotely across the Internet. Wake on Demand works by partnering with
  a service running on your AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule called
  Bonjour Sleep Proxy. When Wake on Demand is enabled, any Mac on your
  network running OS X will automatically register itself and its shared
  items with the Bonjour Sleep Proxy. When a request is made to access a
  shared item on a Mac running OS X, the Bonjour Sleep Proxy asks that
  Mac to wake and handle the request. Once that request is complete, the
  Mac will go back to sleep at its regularly-scheduled interval as set
  in the Computer Sleep section of the Energy Saver preferences pane.

Yes, it can help save energy (if you need that service),
But if you don't need - It will increase electricity consumption.


How to write the names "iPhone", "iPad", etc. in all capital letters? Just curious about whether it is iPHONE, IPHONE, or just never written in all capital letters. Is there a style guide or something on this issue?

As initially mentioned by Neil, the Apple Publications Style Guide is the place to look.

From page 34:

  What to capitalize: Follow these rules when you use title-style capitalization.
  Capitalize every word except:

  Articles (a, an, the), unless an article is the first word or follows a colon
  Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, and so)
  The word to in infinitives (How to Start Your Printer)
  The word as, regardless of the part of speech
  Words that always begin with a lowercase letter, such as iPod and iTunes
  Prepositions of four letters or fewer (at, by, for, from, in, into, of, off, on, onto, out, over, to, up, and with), except when the word is part of a verb phrase or is used as another part of speech (such as an adverb, adjective, noun, or verb).
  Starting Up the Computer
  Logging In to the Server
  Getting Started with Your MacBook Pro

That is, the i in words like iPod and iTunes (and iMac, iPhone, iPad, etc.) are never capitalized.

I don't believe that, given a choice, Apple ever uses all caps, although the only specific rule I've found is on page 33:

  Don’t use all caps for emphasis.

The only official name is "iPhone". If you are putting it in capitals, it is just a matter of choice whether the initial i is uppercase or lowercase. Personally, I think it looks better as "iPHONE".


Unable to disconnect from iPhone Personal Hotspot I can connect to my iPhone hotspot through Wi-Fi on my MacBook Air, but when I then click "Disconnect from my iPhone" in the Wi-Fi menu, nothing happens.

The only method I could use disconnect is to disable Personal Hotspot on the iPhone itself.

Disconnecting on my MacBook used to work prior to upgrading to OS X 10.11, El Capitan. Any idea of a fix?

I solved my problem following bmike's instructions: I rebooted my computer!

My solution is to "Turn Wi-Fi off" and the enable it again, on the MacBook. Kinda hassle but it solved my issue.


IOS accessibility: Turn page in iBooks with headphone buttons / bluetooth keyboard? I am trying to help someone with disabilities to turn pages in e.g. iBooks on the iPad. All I need for this is a single button, possibly one that iOS can interpret as an accessibility switch.

I have looked at bluetooth switches that are made for this purpose, but it always seems like I have to purchase at least two devices (that amount to the equivalent of about USD 200) even in this simple use case. We're not aiming to control the whole OS, just to turn pages.

Is there no way to just use $10 earphone controls as a switch instead? Jailbreak or not.

Or can pages be turned in iBooks with a paired Bluetooth keyboard? That would be great.

I found out the hard way (went to a store) that you can use arrow keys on a Bluetooth keyboard to change pages in ePubs, but not in PDFs. At least in iBooks.

The problem now is that it doesn't work in apps that can read Adobe copy protected ePubs.

The e-reader app Marvin has a feature that let you turn pages using the arrow keys on a Bluetooth keyboard :)


Sending email from iCloud with a different Reply-to field I want to use iCloud's email service (me.com) as the ultimate destination for my incoming mail, as well as the repository of all my Sent mail.  And when people reply to my email, I want it to be sent to myname@pobox.com.  (In other words, I want my pobox.com address to be my "official" address -- the only one anyone sees in their contact lists or their emailer's auto-complete suggestion list: anything else merely promotes confusion!)

In order for my outgoing mail to be copied to my iCloud SENT folder, I need to send it via iCloud's SMTP server.  But there does not appear to be a way to configure OSX Mail (or iOS Mail) to send mail via smtp.mail.me.com but include a Reply-to of myname@pobox.com.

Is there a way to send mail out through iCloud while specifying my
own preferred Reply-to address?
Or, barring that, is there a workaround that will allow me to specify
my preferred Reply-to address while keeping my SENT mail in
iCloud?

I don't know if this works for iCloud account but it works for regular email accounts, try the following.

Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and then choose the iCloud mail account. If there is account information showing the Address as xxxx@me.com simply edit the field to be something like xxxx@me.com,myname@pobox.com

When you send an email tap on the Cc/Bcc,From: field, then click on the From: field. You should be presented with a listing of email address to choose.

On the compose window on Mail, you can customize it using the square button at the left side below/side subject field. There you can add the field answer to:
Using this should work.


OS X Yosemite Xcode update stuck on 'Waiting' I recently downloaded Yosemite, and I'm trying to update my Xcode. I hit 'Update' in the App Store, and but it's been stuck at 'Waiting' for the past 30 minutes.

What can I do to fix this?

Yeah, a lot of people have been facing this issue. First, cancel your update. (In the AppStore update window hold Option to show the Cancel button.)
Now, you can do two things:

Download and install the Xcode DMG from here (if you have an Apple Developer Account)

Or try clearing your cache, and restart the download from the app store. You can use third-party apps or enter this command in your terminal:
rm -rf "$(getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR)/com.apple.appstore"

This worked perfectly for another App Store download stuck in "waiting".  I quit the App Store, opened Terminal, pasted in code from Sheharyar's post above to clear cache, and pressed Enter.  Restarted App Store and was able to begin my download immediately.


Is it possible to launch a program in a specific language? I'm a developer, and my primary language is French, so I use Mac OS X in French. However, I need on a regular basis to open an application in English to do support.

Right now I'm going to the International System Preferences and I put English above in the languages list, then I open the app I need to run in English. When I'm done, I switch it back to French.

This is an annoying process. Is there something else I can use, like a command-line program, to launch an application in a specific language?

You can change the language inside the preferences file of the application :

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit AppleLanguages '("en-US")'

Or just run once one application with another language :

/Applications/iCal.app/Contents/MacOS/iCal -AppleLanguages '(de)'

To determine the bundle identifier, run

mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier /Applications/Mail.app

or directly in one command:

defaults write $(mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier -raw /Applications/Mail.app) AppleLanguages '("en-UK")'

(via SuperUser)

In the Finder, get info on the application. There are languages here, and you can choose. Alas, this seems to have disappeared in Snow Leopard.


How to install Lion without disc So I'm new at Mac... I bought a Macbook Pro Late 2011 and the previous owner didn't do a fresh install.

So I booted from the recovery partition, Disk Utility, erased the Macintosh HD and went to "Reinstall OS X Lion". The problem is I thought the recovery HD actually had the OS image, but it seems it doesn't. So it's downloading it but it says 43 hours remaining... (and the last time I tried it went to 50% and then said "couldn't download additional components" and I had to start over...)

I've Googled a lot and I saw it's possible to put Lion on a USB stick. Problem is, this MBP came with Lion pre-installed, so it's not in the Apple Store available for download.

So now I have an empty HD, waiting for Lion to download (45 hours...) and stuck.

What are my options? I don't want to use illegal images...

Your option is to continue letting it download. Apple does give the installer file, through Recovery Mode.

It sounds like you have an exceptionally slow Internet connection. I recommend that you do this somewhere with a better connection.

I would suggest to go to Apple store and buy the usb with osx on it for something like $59.99 and you are good to go.


Any way to stop creating 'TV' folder in ~/Movies on macOS Catalina Since macOS Catalina, I have a default 'TV' (Apple TV) app installed on my Mac.

It regularly creates an 'TV' folder inside ~/Movies with a file 'TV Libary' and an empty folder 'Media'.

I like to keep my filesystem clean, so I want to get rid of this 'TV' folder. However, when I manually delete the folder it comes back after some time.

Is there any way to stop the automatical creation of the ~/Movies/TV folder?

Short answer? Yes and no.

You can tell TV.app to change where it will store its library by opening the app, going into preferences and then under Advanced choosing a new location. This may not move the current folder, but will create a new one in a location that you prefer, so you can freely get rid of the one under ~/Movies/TV.

However, if you don't have a TV.app library, and never open the app, then once you delete the folder it should stay gone. Of course if you do open the app, it will be recreated, this may also occur if you enable home-sharing for that account, even if you're only sharing music.

Open Finder, right click on Movies on the sidebar, and then go to "Get Info". Lock the folder from there. Unlocking is the simply unchecking that box. The folder would be unmodifiable for most purposes.


Where's my Applescript application? In the Applications folder (El Capitan iMac) there is no Applescript editor. I've also checked the Utilities folder, but didn't find it. I don't think I would have mistakenly trashed it. Should I download a new one?

The AppleScript editor is called Script Editor.app and usually resides in /Applications/Utilities/.

If the file was deleted you may get it back by reinstalling it separately with Pacifist by extracting it from "Install OS X El Capitan.app (10.11.0) > InstallESD" and updating it with OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 Combo Update or immediately from "Install OS X El Capitan.app (10.11.5) > InstallESD".

As klanomath stated, it's called script editor, and resides in /applications/utilities

If it's not there, simply restarting into recovery and doing a reinstall of the OS should put it back

Here are the steps, if you're not certain on how to reinstall OS X:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904


Play feedback when volume is changed via touch bar There is an audible 'pop' when I change volume using the slider in System Preferences. I can also hear it when volume is being unmuted using the soft button on touch bar.

I do not hear any feedback when volume is changed via touch bar.

I have tried tapping touch bar volume button and then dragging the slider, tapping volume icons around the slider, pressing and holding volume button without releasing touch bar; none of them provide any audible feedback.

This is true for both built-in speakers and 3.5mm output.

Is there a way of enabling feedback sound when volume is changed via touch bar?

Start by going to System Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects.

Under the list of sound effects you should see two checkboxes, one labelled Play feedback when volume is changed. Check that box, and you should hear a feedback sound as the volume is changed.

Any time you touch the volume up/down button or release on the slider you will hear the feedback sound.

This sound will be different from the one in System Preferences, sounding more like a 'tick'


kernel_task using *way* too much memory I have a 2008 Mac Mini with 4 GB of RAM.  Recently (post installation of Lion), it started to behave extremely sluggishly, so I used Activity Monitor to see what was using up the system resources.  Turns out that kernel_task is using 2.95 GB of RAM.  Not a typo: it's using ~3 GB of RAM.

I use this Mac Mini as a home media server, connected to a TV and a Drobo.  In other words, beyond running iTunes, I don't really use it for much.  I don't have a ton of applications running, nor do I have any accessories other than the Drobo and the TV connected to it.

What on earth could kernel_task possibly need 3 GB of RAM for, and how can I tell it to stop eating all my RAM and dragging my system to a screeching halt?

In the past, I've experienced odd memory consumption issues after upgrading OS X, due to older kernel extensions that were still being loaded.  Some of the extensions were for applications that I was no longer using and had forgotten about.  You might try listing out all the non apple kernel extensions, then try unloading them one by one to see if you experience any improvement in memory consumption.

To list what is loaded, type the following from a terminal shell:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple

So, each of the kernel extensions, will have a corresponding kext file, located in the default /System/Library/Extensions/.

Then, to unload a kernel extension, type the following:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/<NAME_OF_KEXT_File.kext>

If you identify any extensions that are wonky, you then have a starting place to see if perhaps there is an updated version of the application that is more Lion friendly.

I'd recommend a clean install of Lion. I've seen quite a few issues with upgrading from 10.6 to 10.7 without doing a clean install.


MacBook Pro froze and rebooted into Recovery HD My MacBook Pro was working fine this afternoon and after I came back from class in the evening, when I on the laptop, the white page just froze there for around 2 mins and I'm directed to a page asking me to select language. I chose English and it came to the OS X Utilities page where I'm given option to choose to restore, reinstall new OS X Lion, Disc Utility, and search for help online.

I've tried to reinstall it but it showed that my hard drive is locked. Does anyone knows what happened? There's no nearby Apple Store for me to take my Mac to.

In my experience a locked (read-only) disk in OS X means one of two things: An incompatible filesystem (Like Windows NTFS) or a dying drive. Yours is certainly not the former and likely the latter.

First, see if it can be repaired because it's worth a shot. Open Disk Utility from within the Recovery partition that it boots you into. Highlight your drive on the left-side column (You should see two hard drive icons. The top one represents the physical device and the lower one, indented, represents the volume that the computer sees) and then click the "Repair Disk" button on the right-side panel. See what it spits out at you in the log. Basically red text bad, green text good.

If it tells you the disk was repaired (green text): Restart the Mac and see if it boots up correctly. If it doesn't try holding option on boot and selecting your hard drive as the boot device. If you get back into the system successfully, BACK UP YOUR FILES with Time Machine or your preferred method to another disk.

If it tells you the disk couldn't be repaired (red text): Your drive might be failing. If you plug an external drive into the computer, you can use Disk Utility's Restore tab to clone your hard drive to the external drive. Source = your drive and Destination = the external drive (You can drag and drop them from the left column. Note: Make sure the external drive is blank because restoring wipes the destination drive before copying.

Once you've restored you could try booting off the external drive (Option on startup, select external drive) and doing the restore process in reverse.

Open Disk Utilities and do a Verify Disk. You can try a Repair Disk also. This will either confirm or eliminate that your hard drive is bad, and if you are lucky, may fix the problem. If you get things going and the disk did show problems, immediately run Time Machine to back everything up: you might be on borrowed time.


Why has Spaces become unbearably slow? I have an iMac with this spec:

I have two external monitors, both 4k. Recently, Spaces has become almost unusably slow for me. Switching between spaces on the main display (usually between full-screen IntelliJ projects) using the trackpad is the laggiest. It will scroll a bit, pause for a second, then jerkily scroll the rest of the way. I think I managed to speed it up a little by removing files from my desktop, but that certainly hasn't fixed the problem.

If I open Spaces, then dragging them to rearrange them takes several attempts, because the drag usually fails to start (or at least takes longer than the 30 seconds or so I've tried waiting), and even hovering over different windows takes a couple of seconds before moving the blue highlight.

For some reason, things seem smoother on the external monitors, which only have about two applications each on them.

Most things, like dragging windows around and opening menus, happen just as smoothly as you'd expect them to.

I may not be able to pin down exactly what the bottleneck is, but in effect - OS X tracks every single window opened across all apps and then has to lay them out for each space and decide if a window is visible, occluded by another window or in the dock or hidden entirely by Finder hiding an app.

All of this calculation is pushed to the GPU for buttery smooth animation. At some point, you will exhaust the resources on the GPU whether it's the amount of pixels being stored, the total size of each window, the number of spaces and calculations to be made, transfer speeds from the CPU / RAM to the caches on the GPU. When you hit that bottleneck, either the GPU can't be as efficient or it rejects the work entirely and then you see the CPU doing the rendering.

My suspicion is you are getting the CPU to render which would explain the dramatic drop off in responsiveness. Also - you are pushing somewhere in the order of (5120x2880) + ( 2 x (4096 x 2034) ) = 31,408,128 pixels

If you can make this happen on command - I bet an Apple Engineer would love to look over sudo sysdiagnose WindowServer when the machine is performing miserably. A call to AppleCare or a visit to a genius bar would be the step to get engineering involved.

In the mean time - you might be able to experiment with reducing the load on the GPU by:

less apps with windows open
less windows open per app
fewer virtual screens to contemplate
more hidden windows
re-cabling the displays so they connect directly to the Mac and not daisy chaining them.

For your 4k external displays - are you in MST or SST mode? - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587 - if you went to SST, that might alleviate the bottleneck or require less concessions on the window count at the expense of a 30 Hz refresh rate. The 5k iMac is listed as only supporting one 4k display in MST mode, so that could be an explanation the issue you are seeing.

Try turning off "Displays Have Separate Spaces" in the Mission Control prefpane


I spilled some milk on MacBook Pro, there is no sound what should I do? I spilled some milk on my MacBook Pro and immediately dried it, it seemed to only have been on the top and bottom. Then about 10 minutes later I played a movie and there was no sound. I then noticed a small amount of milk in the aux port so I sucked it out and turned it off and started drying it off (I turned it upside down and put it in front of my now barely warm fire place.) What should do for the sound to be normal?

As a home remedy, you can soak your macbook in a packet of rice. it will absorb the excess water droplet in a safe manner. In that case sometime you might be able save some money without de-assembling your macbook. If any case the issue is there continuously, you better meet a technician or if you are still inside the warranty period, better do the steps adhering that.
Soaking in a rice bucket has been experimented successfully with my xiaomi phone and my hp envy laptop (water spoiled).


What is the proper 3rd party cable type for fastest charging and data transfer with new MacBook Pro? What is the proper name/number of the proper cable to get the fastest charging and data transfer for the new MacBook Pro?

Obviously it came with a wall charger and a cable but I am looking to purchase a 3rd party cable/adapter and I am finding it very confusing between all the USB-3, USB-C, USB 2.0 Type-C, Thunderbolt 3...

Which cable and wall charger is the right kind/type to get the fastest charging and data transfer? If you could recommend or link to some it would be appreciated.

When it comes to USB-C cables it's fast, long, cheap, pick two.
Passive cables are going to be the least expensive.  By being passive they avoid expensive electronics but they also put limits on length and bandwidth.  The faster the cable the shorter it must be.  Unrelated to the length of the cable is it's capability to carry current.  There are two current ratings for USB-C cables, 3 amps and 5 amps.  All USB-C compliant cables must be able to carry 3 amps safely.  Those rated for 5 amps must be "tagged" electronically to tell the charger and device it is capable of carrying 5 amps.  Even though they will have a electronics in them to indicate this current carrying capability they can still be considered "passive" because they do not have any electronics on the data carrying conductors.
There is no easy way to tell a 3 amp cable from a 5 amp cable.  The difference in thickness of the conductors that carry the current is quite small and so it is easily disguised by the insulating jacket which can have considerable variance in thickness depending on the composition and quality.  Simply, a 5 amp cable is not necessarily thicker than a 3 amp cable.
What are commonly called "charge only" USB-C cables are in fact USB 2.0 cables.  These are often relatively inexpensive because they have no active circuitry except perhaps the 5 amp "tag".  There's three ways I am aware of for USB-PD devices to negotiate power delivery over a cable, and a USB-C charging cable will have to support all three to be considered USB-C and USB-PD compliant.  One is to negotiate power on the USB 2.0 data lines.  Another is to use the configuration channel pins to negotiate power.  The third means uses communications on the Vbus lines.  Because USB 2.0 communications is an option for USB-PD negotiation these cables can be used for connecting devices at 480 Mbps even though they are advertised as "charge only".  Also because they must adhere to the USB 2.0 specification for communications they cannot be longer than USB 2.0 allows.  This length limit for a passive USB 2.0 cable is 5 meters, but I have yet to actually see a passive USB-C cable that is this long, 2 or 3 meters will be far more common.  There are of course USB 2.0 cables longer than 5 meters but they do this with a data repeater in the middle, these are not passive cables and they are not cheap.
Passive USB-C cables for 5, 10, or 20 Gbps will be limited to 1 meter or less.  As a matter of keeping these inexpensive they will often also be limited to 3 amps so as to avoid having the electronic tag and heavier power conductors.  Passive 40 Gbps Thunderbolt and USB4 cables will be noticeably less than 1 meter, they will be advertised as 0.8, 0.7, 0.5, or something in length.  Passive cables by their nature of being just a bundle of wires will work just as well (or poorly) for Thunderbolt, USB, DisplayPort, HDMI, or any alternate mode as any other.
Active cables are not limited in length like passive cables.  Because they have active electronics in them they will have some limits on the protocols they support, and they will be much more expensive than a passive cable of the same length.
How can anyone tell these cables apart?  One way is by the markings on the ends of the cables.  It's not illegal to make a cable that does not comply with the USB-C spec.  It is illegal to make a non-compliant cable and put trademarked USB iconography on the cable.  The same goes for Thunderbolt.  The people behind USB and Thunderbolt will defend those symbols because their income depends on people trusting those symbols.
To know how much bandwidth a cable supports look for the icon.  The standard USB "trident" means it supports USB 2.0.  The USB trident with the stylized "SS" means it supports at least 5 Gbps, cables that support 10 Gbps will have a 10 next to the trident, and you can guess what it means if you see 20 or 40.  Thunderbolt cables will have the Thunderbolt icon, and those that support Thunderbolt 3 often have a little 3 next to the symbol.
You likely won't much care if you have an active or passive cable.  I went through that discussion so as to explain why you might see a 1 meter cable cost twice as much as a 0.8 meter cable, and a 2 meter cable only a few dollars more than a 1 meter cable.  It will also explain why one 2 meter cable will make your external drive work real fast and another will make it work real slow.
So far I've been able to keep my USB-C cables apart by buying only passive cables.  I know my 2 meter cables are 5 amp and 480 Mbps, and my 1 meter cables are 3 amp and 10 Gbps.  If I need an active cable in the future then I'll try to make it distinctive by getting it in a unique color or I'll have to pay closer attention to the markings on the cable ends.

What is the proper name/number of the proper cable to get the fastest
charging and data transfer for the new MacBook Pro?

Charging
Charging has more to do with the adapter than it does with the cable.
The new MacBook Pro uses an 87W/61W (15" and 13" MacBook Pro respectively) power adapter.  So, if you use a 60W power adapter it will charge, but slowly regardless of the cable.  To get the maximum speed, you need a charger equal to or greater than the specified power adapter rating.
As of the time of this writing, there are no USB-C power adapter greater than 61W available.  Unfortunately, you have to use the Apple supplied power adapter until 3rd party adapters are released onto the market.  That said, the 87W power adapter will work just fine on the MacBook Pro 13" (61W).
Any USB-C cable will be able to handle up to 100W of power.  My recommendation is to get a good cable from a reputable manufacturer.  I have always had good results with Anker products
Data Transfers
If you have a USB-C cable (it conforms to the USB 3.1 specification) it will handle transfer speeds of 10Gbs.  Period.  If it's a USB-C cable, that's the maximum you will get.
If you have a Thunderbolt device (storage) then you need to get a Thunderbolt 3 cable.  Belkin makes a high quality Thunderbolt 3 cable.  The data transfer rate is 40Gbs.  While it uses a USB-C connector, and carries the USB signal, unlike a USB cable, it also carries the Thunderbolt signal thus the price difference.
Important:  You will not get higher data transfer rates by plugging in a USB-C type Thunderbolt cable into a USB-C device.  You will get USB-C speeds of 10Gbs
What cable do you get?
The question is, what are you connecting?
If you are connecting a USB device, then get the USB cable.  If you are connecting a Thunderbolt device, then get a Thunderbolt cable.  Regardless, both cables will charge at whatever rate your power adapter can deliver and will transfer data only as fast as your device will allow.


Looking for a 360° object view iPhone app I'm looking for a 360° iPhone app that models one object from either a level path around the object or perhaps even a true 360 view from any angle looking in at the object.

This is different than the usual panorama 360° that captures what you see from one point in all directions, but one that allows the illusion of a central object to move and not the point of view (camera) moving.

How about 123D Catch? It is free and allows you to turn your photos into a 3D object.

See a demo here.

I just recently found another one called Relievos.

  Relievos is a fun and creative tool that turns any picture into a 3D image, just like a sculpture.


Why is my host name wrong at the Terminal prompt when connected to a public WiFi network? For three days straight, I have connected to the public WiFi network at my local library. Each day, I have seen a different prompt in Terminal. Here are some of the prompts I've seen:

zp-pc:~ russell$
mary-pc:~ russell$
normob05:~ russell$

I have check under System Preferences -> Sharing, and my computer name is "Russell's Mac". Also, I set the DHCP Client ID to "RUSSMAC" under System Preferences -> Network -> Advanced -> TCP/IP, but I still see the random host names at the Terminal prompt.

Why is my computer name changing every day?

Type in Terminal:

scutil --get HostName

If there's no HostName available, what you see is probably coming from the DNS or DHCP server.

Set your HostName with:

sudo scutil --set HostName 'yourHostName'

That should do it.

This is very late, but hopefully this helps those in the future who run into this problem. After a lot of research the somewhat long but most simple answer I found was to:

Open System Preferences > Network
Click the location dropdown menu
Select "Edit Locations..."
Click the plus button to add a new location
Add a new location by giving it a name
Click Done
Click Apply (instructing it to use the new location)
Open new Terminal window

That should do it.


Prevent OS X from powering off, via CLI I use maid to run a few maintenance scripts regularly, via launchd. The time I chose for those tasks to run makes it very likely that I won’t suddenly decide to turn off my computer around then, but one can never be absolutely certain.

Sometimes, GUI apps prevent the computer from turning off due to unsaved changes. Can we replicate this via CLI? A bit like caffeinate but for power off instead of sleep.

How about actually using a GUI app to make an unsaved document?

osascript -e '
    tell application "TextEdit"
        activate
        set d to (make document)
        set text of d to "Your script is still running!"
    end tell
'

the built in pmset utility can do this

sudo pmset autopoweroff 0
sudo pmset disksleep 0

Should work. If you want to see what all settings are available to pmset, and their currently set values:

pmset -g

You can also man pmset for more info on the pmset utility. Make sure to set the values back to their defaults after changing :)


Why can't I see the weather information in Notification Center? After upgrading my iPad 4 to iOS 7, I don't see the weather forecast in the new Notification Center. The calendar is there, and the bottom of the Notification Center has the Yahoo! copyright info for the weather data, but the weather information is not displayed.

Wi-fi is turned on, but I have the location services disabled. When turning on location services, the weather info is shown. What's strange is that on my wife's iPad, the weather info is shown even with location services disabled. Both of our iPads are Wi-fi only, no 3G.

Are you seeing the same behavior? What could be causing this inconsistency?

I realize that this thread is old, but there are so many issues with iOS7, that there are probably many who still haven't found a solution to this.  What worked for me: Settings > Privacy > Location Services -  Turn on Location Services (if it's not already), and also, scroll down to Weather and make sure that specific app is turned on.  After that, the text weather showed up under the date on Notification Center.  And I have my Weather app in a folder.

iPhone 4S
iOS7

In Settings > Notification Center, make sure you have the Today View and the Today Summary turned on. You will also need to enable location services for Weather. This applies even for the WiFi-ony iPad (it will obtain location data from the WiFi network).


How can I rip my DVD to play them on my TV? I would like to rip a DVD on to Mac then onto a multimedia device to play them on my TV set.

Is there a software that will help me to do so?

You can use HandBrake.

  HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

There are a lot of built-in preset  you can chose from to rip your DVD to a format you'll be able to play on your multimedia device.

My vote goes to Handbrake for ripping, but you could also use Disk Utility to simply make an ISO of the DVD.


Why am I getting a "dubious ownership of file" error when Launch Agent runs my .plist file? I have a Launch Agent configured to run a .plist file for example: /Library/LaunchAgent/foo.plist. Inside this .plist, it is set to run during LoginWindow and Aqua.

When I attempt to launch my computer and get to the login screen, this plist should run but instead gives the following error (in the console):

  launchctl: Dubious ownership on file (skipping): /Library/LaunchAgents/foo.plist

When I attempt to login in to a non-admin account, it gives the exact same error message. When I attempt to login with an admin account, it works fine.

I'll be honest, I don't know much about Mac OS X privileges and permissions.

To create the file, I opened it up in emacs, with sudo on the admin account (e.g. by using the su command since the other account doesn't have sudo privileges) and then saved it.

Which account do I need to use to create the file so that it works for all users?
Do I need to use the sudo command?
Do I need to change the file permissions (e.g. use chmod)?
Is there an easy way to take an existing file and change its ownership instead of having to recreate the file?
Could someone please explain why this error happens?

If a plist is owned by root and writable by a user other than root, that's a security issue.

You can change the owner to root with sudo chown root <filename>, and change the permissions with sudo chmod 644 <filename> (4 for read access, 2 for write access, 1 for execute access, added up. The first number is for the owner, the second for the group, the third for everyone.)

This is what happens when people do not know how sudo works. To disable services that are on files owned by your user just call launchtl without sudo.


Charger cable vs Lighting to USB Camera Adapter My iPad came with the normal Lightning -> USB Type A Male charger cable.
I want to connect it to my Roland piano and the piano's manual mentions the need for a camera connection kit - so apparently I need this: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD821ZM/A/lightning-to-usb-camera-adapter

Now these cables (charger and the above adapter) look very similar to me (both have USB Type A at one end, although one is male and the other is female).

Do they have different wiring/chips?

I use an apple camera connection kit adaptor to connect my iPad to both my RolandRD800 & Kurzweil Forte keyboards. My iPad runs the Unrealbook app which contains all my set lists & songs, and behind each song PDF is a midi HEX string which is sent to both keyboards automatically when I select a song, and this midi HEX string selects the correct patches on each keyboard I require to play the song.

Here is exactly how I set up my connections:

My iPad has the iPad camera connection adaptor plugged directly into it
Plugged into the other end of the iPad camera connection adaptor is a mini-USB 4 port HUB
Into the mini-USB hub I blug two standard printer cables (usb type 'a' to usb type 'b')
Then I plug the other ends 'usb type b' into the keyboards computer ports (one into the Roland and one into the Kurzweil)

There you go. All good. Works a treat. You should now be connected.

NOTE: Your iPad will not charge from your Roland. There is no voltage at the Roland computer port connection to provide a charge. Also the iPad camera connection adaptor is not configured to provide charge to your iPad. It is made purely to connect to a camera and transfer photos.

Must be a chip inside. I can't find any info on this either.


How do I speed up new Terminal tab loading time? How can i speed up the terminal startup in Lion?

I'm not referring to the startup of the Terminal application, but to the startup terminal windows, like when i open a new tab.

I don't have anything in my .bash_profile file and i run rm -rf  /private/var/log/asl/*.asl every 4 hours (which clear those files that usually make terminal slow ).

Currently, when i open a new tab, it takes 3-4 seconds until i can run something.

Short Answer:

The problem is caused by a (potentially) expensive ASL system log lookup.  To see this in action, run sudo fs_usage | grep 'asl.*login' in a Terminal window, then open a new Terminal window.

To solve the problem, configure Terminal to launch a non-standard shell:

Create a symlink to your preferred shell.  E.g.: sudo ln -s /bin/bash /usr/local/bin/bash
Open Terminal Preferences and select the "General" tab.
Select "Shells open with: Command" and enter the symlink you created in step 1.  E.g. "/usr/local/bin/bash".

Note 1: You may also need to add bash and -bash to the process list at "Terminal Preferences > Profiles > Shell > Ask before closing".

Note 2: /usr/local/bin is writable in OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) Rootless mode.

To verify the fix:

Open a new Terminal window.
"Last Login:" should not be displayed at the top
Open the inspector (Command + I) and select the Info tab.
The command should read login -pfq username /usr/bin/bash or login -pfql username ...

Important: If the login command does not include the -q parameter, then you have not fixed the problem.

You can also use sudo fs_usage | grep 'asl.*login' to verify that /var/log/asl is not accessed when opening a new Terminal window.

Details:

There are a number of bugs at play here.

The actual cause of the slowness is /usr/bin/login, which by default will display the date of your last login.  To get this last login date, it searches the ASL (Apple System Log) database at /var/log/asl/.  These log files can be very heavily fragmented and it's this file fragmentation that causes the delay when opening a new window or tab.  (Bug 1)

The only way to suppress the ASL search for last login is to pass the -q parameter to /usr/bin/login.  The .hushlogin file will also suppress the "Last Login" display, but it does not suppress the expensive ASL search. (Bug 2)

Terminal always uses /usr/bin/login to launch each new window/shell.  There is no option to launch a shell directly nor is there a way to directly control the parameters passed to /usr/bin/login (Bug 3).

As it turns out, Terminal will pass the -q parameter to /usr/bin/login when it is configured to use a non-standard shell.  (Bug 4)

The -q parameter is what we need to avoid the problem, hence the symlink to /usr/local/bin/bash.

Just run:

sudo creatbyproc.d
sudo newproc.d

in separate terminals and open the new open to see what is being executed during that time.

If nothing obvious, try the following:

sudo dtruss -an Terminal

This will print all your details which are happening on tab loading time.


How to secure my Mac again after years of downloading pirated software? I'm trying to be more privacy aware now by using free software instead of pirating paid ones (GIMP and DaVinci Resolve instead of pirated copies of Adobe Photoshop and Premiere etc.).

For years I've been downloading pirated and cracked software and giving them permissions to do whatever they want on my MacBook Pro.

I have now uninstalled all those software, but I feel that it's not enough. I gave so many permissions that I wouldn't be surprised if some malicious files or code were still active on my MacBook.

What can I do to fix that?

A recommended course of action would be to backup your user data (data files that you have created, not the apps and their settings) onto a different (external) drive, wipe your Mac clean and start over. This could be the most sure-shot way to ensure that your computer is free of any/all malicious apps/permissions/plug-ins.
When backing up the data, make sure you backup all the crucial files as well as app and system configurations (such as browser bookmarks, info about any installed plugins, contacts etc.)  and don't miss anything. Files can be copied onto a different external volume, browser bookmarks and any similar data from apps exported (for later import), user data such as Notes, Contacts, Reminders synced via iCloud etc. However, do not backup any apps/plug-ins etc.
Another important tip is to not use any data backup service such as Apple's Time Machine or something similar from a 3rd party that backs up and restore the entire system. Doing this wouldn't serve the purpose you are looking for. It's crucial to handpick and selectively backup only the user data files. Any apps that you are using, and wish to use should be re-installed after the fresh install of macOS, from the Mac App Store or from the vendor's original distribution source.
Once all the backup is done, and you are sure you have everything that you'd be needing, you should go ahead and create a bootable macOS installer. A working Mac is required to create a bootable macOS installer. So we'd be doing this before wiping the disk clean. This would ensure that we have a bootable installer handy if needed after we have wiped the disk clean and have lost access to an installed copy of macOS.
The step by step instructions to create a bootable macOS can be found here:

How to create a bootable installer for macOS

You should also sign out of iCloud (after making sure any data that backs up to iCloud is successfully synced) and turn-off Find My Mac. Doing so would disassociate your Mac from your Apple ID. For a comprehensive list of actions to take, you can refer to the following Apple Support document:

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac

Now the data backup is taken care of, we are ready to wipe the disk clean. Be doubly sure about backing up any necessary data as wiping the disk clean would make you lose access to the entire installation and any data on your MacBook's disk.
Proceed ahead to erase your Mac's disk to wipe it clean. You can find the step by step instructions here:

How to erase a disk for Mac

Alternatively, you can also boot your Mac using the bootable USB installer that we created earlier, access the Disk Utility and wipe the internal drive.
Once you are done erasing the disk, proceed ahead to reinstall macOS afresh. You can use the bootable installer that we created earlier on.
Alternatively, if you have a decent Internet connection, and if your Mac supports it, an Internet Recovery can be attempted too. (I would personally recommend going with the bootable USB installer.) To learn more about Internet Recovery, refer to the Apple Support document:

About macOS Recovery.

Once you are done installing macOS, signing-in with your Apple ID and setting up your Mac, you can start by installing the required apps. Two reliable sources to obtain Apps are:

Mac App Store (built into macOS).

Homebrew and Homebrew Cask (A community developed package manager for macOS, which lets you easily install and manage UNIX command-line tools, and popular 3rd-party GUI apps respectively).

You can now start restoring your data:

Once iCloud is enabled, any data that syncs to iCloud would get restored onto the system. Go to System Preferences app → Apple ID → iCloud (On macOS Catalina) or System Preferences app → iCloud (On earlier releases of macOS) and check what apps you wish to sync with iCloud. The checked apps would sync their data to the system.

Restore by importing, any app data that you previously backed up by exporting (such as browser bookmarks).

Any app and their plugins that can be obtained from the developer's website/source of distribution should be installed from the original source.

If an app that you use doesn't have a free alternative available, prefer purchasing from the vendor and installing a non-pirated version to ensure that your computer doesn't get compromised and you have a complete peace of mind.
P.S.: If you are concerned about rouge apps getting unintended access to your personal data and wish to guard your self against it, consider installing macOS Catalina, the current latest release of macOS. macOS Catalina has improved security and a permission-based system for apps to access user data and files (kinda similar to iOS).
One major downside of using macOS Catalina could be that it has completely dropped support for 32-bit apps. While a majority of supported apps are 64-bit now, you may still wish to consult with app vendors to see if they offer a 64-bit version of their app that you wish to use, and there's no alternative available for the same. If such becomes the case, you may consider sticking with the last stable release of the previous version of macOS, i.e. macOS Mojave 10.14.6 which is well supported too.
But since you are concerned about the safety of your data and rogue apps, you should give serious thought to go with macOS Catalina. This article on WIRED sheds some light:

The MacOS Catalina Privacy and Security Features You Should Know

I personally recommend Malware Bytes: https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

You do not need the paid version, you don't even need the trial of the paid version. Download the software and decline the trial. You just want to run a scan of your computer. It will give you instructions to resolve any issues, in most cases automatically.


Maximize windows just like Windows on OS X I have owned a MacBook Pro for a year, however at work I use a Windows laptop. Since I really like the functionality to maximize a windows by just pushing it to the top of the screen, I would like to have that on my Macbook too.

I am using Spectacle to assign shortcuts like "windows" to maximize a window, which works well and I recommend it.

However, is there any application to maximize a window like the way you can do it on a Windows laptop/pc, just by pushing the window to the top of the screen?

Note: I mean maximize window, not fullscreen.

Hold shift option ⌥ and click the green maximise button on the top left part of the window.

NOTE: not every OSX application is eligible for maximize (example: maximizing the Finder doesn't work)

I'd also like to suggest you Moom: https://manytricks.com/moom/


How to stop syncing apps with iTunes without wiping them from my iPhone? Is there a way I can stop syncing apps with iTunes without first obliterating the apps from the iPhone and re-downloading them?

Now that iOS 5 and iCloud are released, I want to stop storing all my apps on my computer, and instead just let them be downloaded directly to each of my devices. Music, podcasts, etc. should still sync with my computer.

However, when I deselect "Sync Apps" in iTunes, I get the message:

  Are you sure you do not want to sync apps? All existing apps and their data on the iPhone "myPhone 4" will be removed.

It seems like an awful waste of time and bandwidth to force the phone to redownload all my apps just to tell iTunes to stop syncing them.

What worked for me was to setup my device for wifi sync first. Make sure under the edit menu and preferences / devices (this is important) that you have it set to prevent automatic sync. Right click on the device in the left pane of itunes and reset all warnings. Have the cable disconnected but the device still visible via wifi. Uncheck sync apps, then ok the warning about removing the apps from the device. Then click "summary" and uncheck sync over wifi then apply in the lower right.

Now reconnect via cable turn wifi sync back on and sync your device via wifi or cable doesn't matter which. Now disconnect the cable, goto apps in iTunes and delete all apps. Ok the warning about removing the apps from the device. Goto summary and uncheck sync via wifi and click apply in the lower right. Then you can reconnect with your usb cable and turn on sync via wifi again.

At this point a popup will tell you that there are apps that you need to transfer to iTunes or they will be removed from your device. Check don't show this again and then click don't transfer. Now you can go into edit and preferences under General and uncheck apps altogether if you want the iTunes apps folder to go away as well.

I did this with both my iPhone and iPad2 and I still have my apps on them.

Good Luck.

Uncheck the "Sync Apps" checkbox
Answer yes to all the warnings about apps that will be deleted from your phone
Once synching actually starts, quickly press the "x" button in the iTunes status window to stop the synching. Pulling the cable should also work but I haven't tried it.

Since the synching process was stopped, no apps were deleted, but the unchecked checkbox is still stored -> all apps left, but no longer synching apps to computer.


Is there any Mac Application used for part-zooming a picture? I found many screenshots for Mac App Store or iTunes App Store using pictures like this,
I want to find a Mac App can do this work.

This feature is built in ML 10.8 with the accessibility feature zoom. Go to system preferences Accessibility, select zoom the last feature is zoom style select picture-in-picture. This will be a rectangle and follows your mouse any where on screen. You can use option command = (to enlarge) or - (to decrees) the text under the magnifying rectangle, if you have a keyboard with num pad you can use option command + or - for the same effect.

It's called a Loupe tool.  You'll find it in a lot of different image editing programs.
Both Photoshop and Aperture have Loupe tools built in.


Mounting an SMB share uses the share name and not the local directory name I'm mounting an SMB share via the command line in 10.9 with the following:

mkdir /Volumes/MountName
mount_smbfs //user:password@server/Share$/SubDir /Volumes/MountName

Previously in 10.8 this would be mounted on the desktop with the MountName directory name I manually created for the mount point.

Now it's displaying with the remote share name Share$. The mount point hasn't changed and still appears as /Volumes/MountName.

How can I force the local name of a mounted drive in 10.9?

I think that you might be looking at the /Volumes/ folder with Terminal, right? But it shows the proper name of the same folder using Finder.

The share$ name in /Volumes/ only affects my shell scripts, so I've ignored the difference and life is not too bad ;)


How to retrieve deleted photos (duplicate) from iphone? Recently i have imported my pics from iPhone in iPhoto and it asked me for deleting duplicate pics and i chose yes. But the problem is it has deleted some pics which i wanted but according to iPhoto they were duplicate.
So is there any way i can get those deleted photos back?
Thanks for your time.

Finally I end up using Wonder Share (Mac)


How do I sync my iPhone and 2015 MacBook I don't have a USB-C cable or USB-C adapter.

How do I sync my iPhone 5s with my 2015 MacBook? I thought I could do it over WiFi?

2015 MacBook's don't have USB ports

I also have a MacBook Pro but I don't want my iTunes library on this machine.

To Sync your iPhone via WiFi your iPhone needs to be connected with a cable to the MacBook once. Then in iTunes there will be an option on the main screen for the iPhone where you can select "WiFi Synchronization".

This will make it possible for the iPhone to be synced when on the same network and manually when navigating to Settings > General > Wi-Fi iTunes Synchronization.

You need to connect the iDevice to iTunes with the Dock/Lightning to USB cable (you can use an adapter or Thunderbolt device that has USB ports) and enable WiFi Sync in the Summary section of the iDevice. There is no way to enable this setting wirelessly. Then it will auto-sync when the iDevice is plugged in and connected to WiFi. Syncs can also be started manually over WiFi.


my Mac and my iPhone show wrong time zone I set my Mac to receive the date and time from time.europa.apple.com, and my iPhone is set to find a time zone automatically. But they both show me incorrect time. one hour later. Well,  I live in St-Petersburg, Russia, and some years ago we had this "timezone changing", to not differ from Europe, but later we returned back to the previous. So is the Apple server set up incorrect, or do I have to change something?

The server has nothing to do with the time zone. It supplies the time in UTC+0, and it is up to your devices to use their knowledge of your time zone to work out what the time is where you are. For your Mac, in the Date & Time preferences, check where your Mac 'thinks' it is:

The same applies for your iPhone:

If it is identifying you as being in the wrong time zone, or if the time zone is correct but the time is wrong, I suggest setting your time zone to St Petersburg manually, and seeing if that fixes the problem. I just tried setting my time to St Petersburg manually, and it appeared to be the correct time, so I don't think Apple's information about Russia's time zones is out of date.

Apple server is incorrect. Best fix I found is to pretend we are in Ukraine. Hope it gets proper fix soon.


command line update of python3 I have both python 2.7 and 3.5.1 installed in my Mac (El Capitan). I left version 2.7 as per this recommendation.

Now I would like to update version 3.5.1 to the latest one but from the command line. Is there a way to do that (preferably from within python itself)?

You can easily switch versions of Python using pyenv.

For example (using Homebrew):

$ brew update
$ brew install pyenv
$ echo 'eval "$(pyenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile

$ exec $SHELL

$ pyenv install 2.7.12
$ pyenv install 3.5.2
$ pyenv global 2.7.12 3.5.2

$ python -V
Python 2.7.12

$ python2 -V
Python 2.7.12

$ python2.7 -V
Python 2.7.12

$ python3 -V
Python 3.5.2

$ python3.5 -V
Python 3.5.2

Unfortunately, there isn't another way from the command line other than installing Homebrew, an unofficial package manager for macOS and then typing brew install python3.

This method does pose some issues. When installing Python via Homebrew, it does not remove any old version of Python (for compatibility reasons). This means old versions could be sitting on your hard drive, taking up space that could be used for something else. Another possible issue with Homebrew is that it needs Xcode to be installed so that it can compile and install Python on-device (and the current version of Xcode takes up 10+ gigs of HD space, not to factor in the space to store the source code).

The preferred and official way to install Python is via their .pkg installer available at their website, but this doesn't remove old Python3 installations either (again, for the same reasons).

So it all comes down to how you want to go about installing Python. There are many different ways, and I only listed the ones that seem most relevant to your situation.


Need a Google Voice app for Mac Background
I've been using Google Voice for about a year. During that time, I've been also using a Mac app called GrowlVoice that appears in my menubar. It allows listening to voicemail messages and also sending text messages.
Error
Now when I launch Google Voice I get an error:

Unable to sign in to myemailadress@gmail.com
Unable to build JSON object from JSON string"

What I tried
I deleted GrowlVoice's app using an CleanMyMac, an app that supposedly deletes apps and all their associated files. I then re-downloaded GrowlVoice from the App Store, but I'm still getting the error.
Further Research
I also went to the website of the GrowlVoice developer and sent him a message. I'm writing here too because the developer's site hasn't been updated since 2012 and GrowlVoice is no longer being sold on the App Store so it's apparently no longer in development.
Questions
So, my questions are:

How can I fix the JSON errors?
Is there another app that would have similar functionality as GrowlVoice?

Update
Apparently today Google made changes to Google Voice which broke GrowlVoice, which is why GrowlVoice was pulled from the Mac App store. Now I have to log into my Google account in a browser if I want to listen to voicemail messages or send texts on my Mac.

The developer's twitter page said that Google has revoked access to Google Voice for GrowlVoice so they can no longer support the app.  It has since been removed from the App Store as well and I am also looking for an alternative to this wonderful application.

I was upset about GrowlVoice not working too. I have another app for Mac called VoiceMac which isn't too bad. it has to be running in the dock to receive notifications on real time otherwise you get your texts the next time that you open the app. You can find it here. https://mrgeckosmedia.com/applications/info/VoiceMac


iTunes Match + manually managed music? My iPhone is set to manually manage my music, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. However, I also like some of the features that iTunes Match offers. Is there any way that I can enable Match on my phone, download what I need, and then disable it again without it deleting my existing, manually-copied music?

(The reason I don't want to switch to iTunes Match full-on is a) I have a lot of unique masterings and recordings that iTunes Match will match generically, b) I listen to a lot of one-off tracks that I don't want stored permanently, and c) it feels wrong that I can't copy music from my computer if I so wish, even if my phone is plugged into it.)

Note that iTunes Match is fairly precise in how it matches songs.  A unique recording will probably be uploaded, not matched -- certainly, if the unique recording has a different length than the standard ones, it won't be matched.  If you are willing to potentially lose $25, get iTunes Match and see what is matched.  If stuff that you want to be uploaded is matched instead, don't use iTunes Match.

When you enable iTunes Match on your iPhone, the music you already copied manually to your  iPhone will stay on you iPhone. iOS will only delete tracks if/when there's not enough storage on your iPhone anymore. So if you make sure to leave a big enough part of your iPhone storage free, the songs you copied manually should stay on your iPhone.


Is there any way to use Safari 5.1's rendering engine for browser testing on OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion)? I have OSX 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion) on both my Macs, which comes with Safari 6.1. A couple of my clients have been reporting minor CSS errors using Safari 5.1, which I obviously can't install. This makes fixing these errors very, very difficult.

Are there any recommended methods for testing with the rendering engines of older versions of Safari? Would there be an appropriate vintage version of Webkit that would be able to install on 10.8, as the appropriate nightlies refuse to run?

I found a project online which i think uses an old WEBKIT renderer..
http://michelf.ca/projects/multi-safari/ gives old versions, but i don't know which ones you will be able to run on your new machine. For myself,  I'm running 4.0.5 because of the reduced RAM usage.

You can enable the Develop menu in the Preferences > Advanced checkbox (show develop menu in the menubar).

Once you do that, you can change the user agent to the older versions of Safari.


Keyboard Backspace key not working but repeats when reconnecting USB I've been using, and enjoying, a Microsoft Sculpt Wireless keyboard for the past couple years. All of a sudden tonight the backspace key stopped working. Using the keyboard viewer, I can tell all the other keys are fine:

What's odd is if I disconnect and reconnect the USB receiver the viewer shows the backspace key like it's stuck. It's not. I've read some of the other answers on here about checking for crumbs and dust. Blown it out with air but haven't gone as far as disassembling it.

2013 iMac running 10.11.6 but it's also sadly happening on my MacBook Pro running the latest version of High Sierra. Love this keyboard, but wanted to see if anyone else has solved this without popping keys off.

I'm considering treating this as a challenge to improve my typing and spelling :)

Dude... your number pad is under something and the backspace key there is being pressed.

Just clear the number pad and it will start working.


Upgrade to final from Public Beta? I'm currently on the public beta of El Capitan, how do I upgrade to the final version of the new OS?

You don't need to upgrade. OS X 10.11 GM and final release are the same according to Apple and once 10.11.1 is released both the GM and final release will update to it.

The safe way:
Boot into Recovery HD, erase the drive, and restore from your Yosemite backup (if you have one). Then download the installer and upgrade.

I wouldn't recommend just downloading the installer and updating, as bugs could be carried over.


Error while updating macOS I'm trying to install High Sierra 10.13.3 Supplemental Update. But I'm getting an error, which is 'The request timed out. (-1001)'

You need a VPN or to change your network. It seems there is a firewall blocking the Apple server.


How to change filepath structure using automator (windows to mac)? I use a mac at work and people send me windows file paths all day. Does anyone know how to convert the filepath using applescript in an automator so I can right click in an email and then open it?

Windows path: \\Sfa66\devmrkdt$\Donor Relations\FY14\Events\Invitation\Email

Mac path: smb://Sfa66\devmrkdt$/Donor Relations/FY14/Events/Invitation/Email

This answer was so close How to translate between Windows and Mac -style file locations? but it won't work when there are blank spaces in the file path.

Blank spaces have to be escaped. To escape a special character, like a blank space, you use a forward slash, so " " will become "\ ".

You can modify the script, https://gist.github.com/2211017, link to from the post you linked to by adding the following line set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, " ", "\ ") after line 16.

...
15. set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, ">.", "")
16. set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, ">", "")

17. set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, " ", "\ ")

18. set findIt to "\\"
19. set replaceIt to "/"
...

I created three Mac automator scripts based on internet code snippets for task of this question. Enjoy.

URL: https://github.com/marcoziti/mactoys


Why can't I sign into the Mac App Store after updating to 10.6.6? Ever since I updated to 10.6.6 a week or so ago I've wanted to use the Mac App Store but I can't sign in.  The Sign in link and the sign in menu item neither seem to do anything.  I'm signed into iTunes just fine, I can use my account on my Mac and iPhone.

I've tried erasing the contents of ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore/ but that had no effect.

Got an answer from the apple forum.

Sign out of iTunes.  Log off, log back in.  Then sign into App Store, after that, sign into iTunes.

Looks like everything works now.

you will need to logout of every apple app store if you've got serveral accounts then try login with the computer thats having issues and youll see also i thought icloud was originally not gonna see or detect my login from my problem computer but but it sure as hell noticed fast also final thing with me since i have 2nd party security i entered my password and the numbers before doing anything else and somehow it registered my computer so keep that in mind type your original password in plus the numbers if you have it set up like i do then press enter it seriously shocked me! i wasnt expecting that to happen but did.

your welcome
jonathan


How to completely remove Folx on Mac OS X? I installed Folx download manager on my MacBook Pro. I didn't like it, so I removed it from the Applications folder. I also searched for its dependent files in /Library/Preferences, but I found nothing related to Folx.

Now, when I try to download files, it tries to download using Folx—but Folx doesn't work. How can I fix this problem?

For prior version than Folx 4

Go Download the Folx.dmg from their website, and open it. In the dmg image, there will be a package file called uninstaller. Run that.

It is only for prior versions than Folx 4, as said by Eltima Software. For Folx 4 or newer, it is mentionned on their website that it is enough to remove Folx.app to permanently remove it.

Open the Applications folder in Finder, select the app and drag it to Trash (located at the end of Dock). Then choose Finder → Empty Trash. When you empty the trash, the app is permanently removed from your Mac.


Connect MBP 2015 to external monitor 2560 x 1080 resolution? I need to connect a MBP 15" to an external monitor with 2560 x 1080 resolution (this http://www.trustedreviews.com/lg-29ea93-review ).

I already tried HDMI to HDMI but the text looks very bad (sharp).

I guess I need to use Thunderbolt to Display Port but I don't know which cable adapter is the correct one.

Then my question is which is correct connection and what cable do I need to buy?

The MBP has:

Thunderbolt
USB 3
HDMI

The monitor has:

DisplayPort
DVI-D Dual Link
HDMI
USB 3.0

You can connect your monitor to a Thunderbolt port using a DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cable like this one; other lengths are available if 3 Feet is not long enough for your purposes.

I connected my LG 25UM65 (2560x1080 native resolution) to my MacBookPro11,3 (mid 2014 15" Retina) three different ways, HDMI to HDMI, Thunderbolt to DisplayPort, and Thunderbolt to HDMI. The Thunderbolt to HDMI connection is not useful (the maximum resolution it offers is 1920x1080), but the other two connections both work at 2560x1080@60Hz, and the visual quality is comparable across the two connections (but both look blotchy compared to the Retina display). A UHD display (3840x2160) is a better choice than 2560x1080 to maximize the display quality of Thunderbolt 2 (DisplayPort 1.2).

It's possible that a better HDMI cable will improve the display quality (the one I'm using is labeled HDMI HIGH SPEED). You can determine (and change) the resolution and refresh rate from System Preferences (Display) by choosing Scaled rather than Default for display (using the Alt key while choosing Scaled can provide more choices on some displays). A 2015 Mac's HDMI port is capable of driving 2560x1080@60 Hz, provided the display has a suitable HDMI input (HDMI 1.3 is sufficient, but HDMI 1.2 probably isn't). If your display has multiple HDMI inputs, you might try all of them to see if that makes a difference.

I was able to get the LG 34UM65 (ultrawide monitor at 2560x1080) working with a 2017 MBP running macOS sierra following these instructions http://terrislinenbach.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/running-lg-29um57-p-on-old-macbook-pro.html


2G iPod touch with iOS 4.2.1 I need a PDF reading app for my 2nd generation iPod touch. I downloaded Adobe Reader, Cloud Readers, iBooks and PDF Reader iPhone edition from the App Store, but all of them require iOS 5.

Please suggest the best PDF reading app for iOS 4.2.1, or suggest some steps to upgrade to iOS 5.

The 2nd generation iPod touch can’t be upgraded to iOS 5.

One PDF reader that still works on pre-iOS 5 devices is GoodReader, although according to their site it requires iOS 4.3.

If you connect your iPod touch to iTunes, then there should be an option to update to iOS 4.3. The instructions in this Apple Support article explain how to update an iOS 4 device (see Update your device using iTunes).

There may be other PDF readers that can run on iOS 4 devices, but I don’t know of any by name. Pre-iOS 5 devices are now a very thin sliver of the iOS installed base, so most developers have dropped support for them.

Sorry, but your iPod cannot upgrade to iOS 4.3.1/5.0.1. Many PDF readers have dropped support now as we'll. Sorry.


How do I delete purgeable space detected by Disk Utility? I am French so I apologize in advance for any possible language errors. I'm running macOS Mojave (version 10.14.2).

Recently, I tried to run Bootcamp because I would like to install Windows. I went through the deletion of many files I didn't need to obtain more than 64 gigs of free space on the disk.

However, now that I would normally have the space to install Windows, Bootcamp tells me that there's not enough space on my disk because "The disk must have at least 40 GB of free space." I've checked Disk Dtility and it shows me there's 95,05 gigs that are purgeable. How to purge them?

I've searched for answers everywhere but it couldn't help me. It appears that the free space detected by the Disk Utility is different from the one shown by the global storage viewer. Pic related :

driveinfo free space analysis

I've also used "diskutil verifyVolume disk1" in terminal :

See Traderhut Games' answer from this answer:

In Terminal, run

df -h /

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused       ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s1   466Gi  370Gi   64Gi    86%    xxxxx   xxxxxxxxx    0%        /

then, for the disk you wish to use, run:

diskutil secureErase freespace 0 /dev/disk1s1

I have used a combination of DaisyDisk and Cocktail (Onyx might do this as well, but I'm not familiar with that) Cocktail can delete local snapshots, which I think is what you are seeing. The Apple forums also has a Unix bases way of doing this, but as I am not completely comfortable with command line stuff, I let that go...

Hope this helps


No sound when iOS screen off and using Google Maps navigation? I'm using latest versions of iOS and Google Maps on an iPhone 7, and when I turn the screen off, I do not hear turn-by-turn directions when using the navigation feature of Google Maps. Yet, according to the "Battery saving tips" of the Google Maps app documentation, I should still hear the sounds.

I verified this by turning off the screen (pushing power button) a few seconds before the next turn navigation came up. Then verified it was working by leaving the screen on for the next turn. The phone is not connected to any bluetooth devices either.

Also, the Google Maps settings all seem to indicate that sounds are all enabled properly (volume icon on map is set to "unmuted"; under navigation settings, all relevant-looking settings are enabled; etc.).

Any ideas why this would not be working for me? I've yet to try a restart of phone nor have I tried a reset of phone. (Will eventually try those if no other suggestions come up.)

Update: I also just tried re-navigating to new location; I turned screen off in the middle of the, "okay navigation all set" message. Then, the "you're on the fastest route" message played while screen off, but then all the directions no longer play, so issue still happening.

Update 2: I disabled bluetooth and restarted the phone, and the problem still exists. The voice directions also do not play when I have a different app in focus.  I'll try a fresh install of Google Maps at some point soon.

There is a setting in it somewhere to allows notifications when in standby.


Why can't I install telnet on my macOS catalina with Homebrew? Here is the error information:

shawnstationdeMacBook-Pro:~ shawnstation$ brew install telnet
==> Downloading https://opensource.apple.com/tarballs/remote_cmds/remote_cmds-54.50.1.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Users/shawnstation/Library/Caches/Homebrew/telnet-54.50.1.tar.gz
==> Downloading https://opensource.apple.com/tarballs/libtelnet/libtelnet-13.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Users/shawnstation/Library/Caches/Homebrew/telnet--libtelnet-13.tar.gz
==> xcodebuild SYMROOT=build
Last 15 lines from /Users/shawnstation/Library/Logs/Homebrew/telnet/01.xcodebuild:
2020-02-29 03:04:09 +0800

xcodebuild
SYMROOT=build

Build settings from command line:
    SYMROOT = build

note: Using new build system
note: Planning build
note: Constructing build description
error: The i386 architecture is deprecated. You should update your ARCHS build setting to remove the i386 architecture. (in target 'libtelnet' from project 'libtelnet')

** BUILD FAILED **

Do not report this issue to Homebrew/brew or Homebrew/core!

/usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils/github.rb:222:in `raise_api_error': curl failed!  (GitHub::Error)
curl: (7) Failed to connect to api.github.com port 443: Connection refused
curl: (3) URL using bad/illegal format or missing URL
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils/github.rb:180:in `open_api'
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils/github.rb:294:in `search'
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils/github.rb:227:in `search_issues'
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils/github.rb:240:in `issues_for_formula'
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/exceptions.rb:368:in `fetch_issues'
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/exceptions.rb:364:in `issues'
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/exceptions.rb:418:in `dump'
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:137:in `rescue in <main>'
    from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:29:in `<main>

Does anybody know why? thanks a lot.

My catalina version is 10.15.2 (19C57)
Home-brew version is

shawnstationdeMacBook-Pro:~ shawnstation$ brew --version
Homebrew 1.6.9
Homebrew/homebrew-core (git revision fab7d; last commit 2018-07-07)

Do the brew update first.

$ brew update
Fast-forwarded master to origin/master.
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles-portable-ruby/portable-ruby-2.6.3.mavericks.bottle.tar.gz
################################################################################################################# 100.0%
==> Pouring portable-ruby-2.6.3.mavericks.bottle.tar.gz
==> Homebrew has enabled anonymous aggregate formulae and cask analytics.
Read the analytics documentation (and how to opt-out) here:
  https://docs.brew.sh/Analytics
No analytics have been recorded yet (or will be during this `brew` run).

==> Homebrew is run entirely by unpaid volunteers. Please consider donating:
  https://github.com/Homebrew/brew#donations
Updated 1 tap (homebrew/core).

Then it's ok!

$ brew install telnet
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/telnet-63.catalina.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring telnet-63.catalina.bottle.tar.gz
  /usr/local/Cellar/telnet/63: 4 files, 138.1KB

Installing telnet client on MAC OSX is very easy. You can simply run few commands and then finally run:

 brew install telnet

First telnet should be installed. You can follow the instruction at https://brewinstall.org.
You can search any mac app that you want to install and get the simple steps to install it.


Music files don't copy from iTunes to iPhone, appear grey with a dotted circle When I drag music files from iTunes (desktop) onto a connected iPhone, many times the files just don't copy to the iPhone - the tracks appear in the list on iPhone, albeit grey and the most-left column is a dotted circle with a to me unknown meaning (it might be a progress bar really...).

iTunes 12.0.1.26 (OS X Yosemite)

You can see some of the files copied, while others did not, in the screenshot:

The dotted circles are in the left-most column.

I'll list some things to rule out:

Not using iTunes Match.
I do have enough space on the iPhone. It's a new iPhone 6 Plus 128 GB, with about 60 GB free space.
I do have "Manually manage music and videos" selected.
I can copy some files, some files just won't copy. Even in the same drag manoeuvre, some files would copy and some will not.

Ignore all the rest of this crap, all I did was change the name of one of the songs that wasn't syncing.  After I did that I hit sync and they all started syncing.  Hope this works for whoever reads.

FIX IS EASY...... SELECT THE TRACKS WITH THE DOTTED CIRCLES IN ITUNES WINDOW... THEY GO BLUE.......THEN RIGHT CLICK IN THIS WINDOW WITH ALL THE TRACKS HIGHLIGHTED IN BLUE.... THEN SELECT THE DE-SELECT OPTION ... SO THE TICK IS GONE ON THE FAR LEFT OF THE SCREEN NEXT TO EACH TRACK...... THEN... RIGHT CLICK AGAIN.... AND SELECT "SELECT" OPTION SO THE TICK RE-APPEARS..... AND ALL TRACKS HAVE A TICK AGAIN.... THIS RE TELLS ITUNES WHAT TO SYNC.....THEN CLICK SYNC..... VOILA... WORKS FOR ME IN EL CAPITAN - 10.11.6 - ITUNES - 12.4.3.1  :)


Apple Watch notifications over WiFi First days after I've bought my Apple Watch, keeping my iPhone with Bluetooth turned off and WiFi on (so with Apple Watch connected "to the cloud") my Watch was able to receive iPhone's notifications as it was connected with bluetooth.

Now this "feature" died, so if I have my iPhone with Bluetooth turned off and WiFi on and my Apple Watch connected to the cloud, Watch don't receive any notifications; is there a way to restore this "feature"?

EDIT: This morning works!! Here's an example:

iPhone connected only to WiFi and W connected to the Cloud.

........ W Receives iPhone's notification!

Apple Watch connects to Wi-Fi networks it has connected whilst being linked via Bluetooth with your iPhone. See: About Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on Apple Watch

So, let's say you forget your phone at home but you're wearing your watch at work. Your watch will recognize the wifi network and still give you your notifications over Wi-Fi.

You might also need to mirror notifications. See: About notifications on your Apple Watch

Watch only produces notifications with a Bluetooth connection to your iPhone.


How can I set up my iphone to play sounds only when plugged in or an alarm is going off? I just got an iPhone 5 with iOS 6 and am struggling with all the different sound/vibration settings.  It seems like there are so many different ways to control this (up/down buttons on the left of the phone, the on/off toggle on the left, Settings --> Sound, and individual in-app settings).

Ideally what I want is for the phone to be silent (vibrate only) all of the time, except when:

I do something explicit to turn the volume on (e.g. I am playing a game or listening to music or something)
It is plugged in
An alarm goes off

What I specifically do NOT want:

The ringer to ever ring while the phone is in my pocket (i.e. 100% of the time it is not plugged in)
The alarm to ever NOT make a audible sound, regardless of any other volume/sound settings (e.g. if the answer is "flip the toggle switch on before you go to sleep and flip it off when you wake up," that's not good enough because I know I'll forget to do that and miss my alarm)

Is what I want possible?  What settings should I use?  Does this depend on the choice of alarm clock app?

Sound on iPhone is reasonably complicated when you get down and start "taking it apart". This is because it is managed on a very much case-by-base basis.

For example, if you call up Siri, and adjust the volume, it will only be adjusting the volume for Siri, not something like the ringer volume.

So to divide things up and try to answer your question, I'll start with the basics.

If you turn on Vibration mode (orange position) using the switch on the side of the phone it will turn off almost all sounds. Unlock, keyboards and such sounds will no longer be on. Notifications and phone calls will vibrate but not be heard. You will have to turn the switch off (no orange) in order to hear normal sounds while in apps - (i.e. games). When alternating vibration mode versus normal mode, iPhone remembers your previous state, and will set the volume to what it was before vibration mode was active.

Exception: alarms set in the Clock.app are still heard. In fact, there is no way to turn off Clock.app's alarms from being heard unless you turn off the alarm(s) itself. As for other alarm clock style apps (for example, Sleep Cycle), it is up to the developer to make it behave like Clock.app. That is the case with Sleep Cycle, but it would be worth verifying with any other alarm style app.

If you turn down the volume in the Music.app (or double tap home button and swipe to the right twice), or while watching a video, or in Settings.app, that is the volume that is applied across the board, mostly. That volume reflects the volume for videos, music, and apps that in general make noise - as in, games. Note that iPhone remembers your settings when you have headphones plugged in vs. not.

When iPhone is unlocked and you are on the home screen and you adjust the volume, you are adjusting ringer volume. In other words if the vibration switch is off (no orange) then that would be the volume it would ring at.

Do-not-disturb suppresses basically all notifications (there are some configuration options there). Again, alarms (from Clock.app, and other properly set up apps like SleepCycle) will stay play.

The only thing you can't do is have it toggle sound settings when it is plugged into the wall vs. when it is not. I think you will find it becomes habit, however, to throw the vibration switch.

A jailbroken iPhone can manipulate a lot of these settings you desire as they are not options included in the stock iOS. Remember though, while jailbreaking may be beneficial, it has its flaws also.

*edit

Vibrate Things is an application tweak that allows you to customize a bunch of things to vibrate. It can be found in cydia after jailbreaking.

If you like to know you are in vibrate you can install muteicon which shows a mute symbol in the status bar.

The app Auto Silent will disable the ringer switch but I believe it isn't updated yet for iOS6. This becomes in handy when you accidentally flip the switch and not realize it...

There are many more application that do similar things ^^ googled those in seconds to edit this post to answer the comment.


Removing camera from lockscreen Is there a way to remove the camera from the iPhone lock screen on iOS 9-10 without disabling the camera entirely?

This is not possible without jailbreaking.
If the device is jailbroken, you can use mikoto: iOS System > Lock Screen > Disable Camera.


How to make DVD from iMovie Apple has decided to exclude iDVD from Lion, and I haven't found an easy way to make a DVD that can be played on my DVD player created in iMovie.

I found this question

However, there is no clear answer there.
I dont have iDVD, and I cannot get it, but I still want to be able to create a DVD.

Does anyone know how this can be done?

You can export your movie to a format of your wishes (.avi, .dv, ...) and then you can burn this on a disk with a suitable software suite (Roxio Toast or with the built in software of Lion/Mac OS)

EDIT: for free, software, I would recommend you use Burn

In iMovie '11 go to the Share menu and select Burn to DVD.


Disable system-wide ctrl-click as right-click in Mavericks Disabling ctrl+click as right-click is useful because:

Many web app rely on ctrl+click (typically for multiple selection).
There is little use for this combo (mice have 2+ buttons and trackpad emulate right-click with two-finger click or clicking in the right zone).

Can it be done in OS X Mavericks?

This question has been asked before for Lion and answered negatively (i.e. a third party utility is needed). Has this improved for Mavericks?

In my VMWare Windows 7 guest, I have found (after reading this post) that using Ctrl+Command+LeftClick works the same as Ctrl+LeftClick would in a hardware Windows machine.

just go to Accessibility > Keyboard > Open Keyboard Preferences... > Modifier Keys > Contro (^) Key > No Action

click ok then youre done!


iCloud storage doesn't add up As you can see here, my iCloud storage doesn't add up. This also shows the same on my iPhone.
 As you can see, Backups still takes up 3.86 GB of space, even though I deleted it (because i had no space left to backup, deleting the current backup usually allows me to do a new full backup). What can I do to restore my iCloud space?

This might be a little late but I had the same problem. Went to the genius bar and they said to call Apple Care. I called Apple Care three times. The first two people said that there are other item which could be taking up space and couldn't provide a solution. The third one was more experienced and fixed the problem within minutes. She had access to the "iCloud support tools". This is a tool the Apple iCloud team has access to (but we as consumers don't). She used the iCloud storage repair kit and within minutes, my devices refreshed and the free space showed up. Apparently this problem occurs when you upload a file, it gets corrupted, then once deleted, iCloud doesn't recognise the space as being free. Hope this helps.

There are other things besides apps that use up iCloud storage space.   The biggest is iMessage.   If you have conversations you haven't deleted in a while, especially ones with pictures, those take up quite a bit of space as part of your backups.

Also, it appears you have your mail backed up to iCloud as well (based on your screenshots).   Mail takes up space as well...  especially if you don't delete all your mail, or clear it from your trash.

Most likely, though, you haven't deleted your messages in some time and those are taking up the majority of your backup space.

EDIT - Also, since iMessages doesn't show up in the backup section (even though it is backed up), if you are curious as to how much space your messages are taking up, on your iPhone you can navigate to Settings -> General -> Storage & iCloud Usage -> Manage Storage (the one at the top under Storage).   From here, it will show how much space each app takes up on your phone.   Whatever you see here for messages, that will also affect your backup.


Can't install Flash - Installation failed This week my El Capitan system reported that the Flash player was out of date.  So I did the usual thing and went to Adobe, downloaded the latest (21 A) installer and kicked it off. After entering my password, the installer went through the usual "downloading .." part and commenced on the installation part, at which point it failed, showing me this:

What I did was the same as I had done many times before, but this time it failed - and I tried multiple times and also downloaded the installer multiple times.

Any ideas?

I had this problem on & off for years, it's something to do with my firewall, which I've never been prepared to fiddle with just so I can get an online installer to function properly.

The simplest workaround is to go get the full downloadable .dmg version instead of the online installer.

For the past few years, it's been located at http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html
or you can Google "adobe flash player offline installer download" which always finds it.

I did eventually find a solution to my Flash problems...
... I uninstalled Flash from every machine in the building ;-)

Ensure you enable Active Scripting - select Internet options, security, scripting, active scripting (last option at bottom of list). This fixed it for me.

Cheers.


How do I fix my SSD after installing Yosemite and Enabling TRIM? No boot & can't erase I recently upgraded to Yosemite, enabled FileVault and foolishly enabled TRIM (had no idea it wasn't supported).

Upon restart, my machine gets the grey screen with the crossed-out circle of death.

After figuring out what happened, I then attempted to restore from a Time Machine backup (10.9).  The backup failed almost immediately, but did manage to erase the HD (or at least the partition is gone).

Now I'm completely stuck.  Disk Utility can see this drive, but cannot erase or re-partition it.  The drive isn't mounted so I cannot access it with Terminal (at least with my level of knowledge).  cd /Volumes/mydrive doesn't work - no such directory.

I have re-installed Yosemite on my second hard drive and booted from there.  I tried Disk Utility again and I still have no options available to erase or partition my original disk, although it is there.

Can anyone help me get my original disk back into functioning form?  If I can just get the disk erased and partitioned, I can load my Time Machine backup and be off to the races.  Thanks!

A clean install is not necessary, you simply need to reconfigure your NVRAM (nvram boot-args=kext-dev-mode=1) to disable the kext signing requirement for OS X.  (After which, you can remove your TRIM enabler and reverse this change or leave it until the next time your NVRAM is changed/resets)

A very clear explanation of OS X 10.10 Yosemite's new policy with Kernel Extension (kext) signing now being required from the creator of Trim Enabler, as well as simple steps to recover the grey boot screen after TRIM/Yosemite mishaps:

https://cindori.org/trim-enabler-and-yosemite/

Same problem here. I have Macbook Pro, 15 inch, 2009 model. Was on Maverick, upgraded carefully (prepped and cleaned). Upgrade went fine, was able to use it a day, then no boot. I had installed an OWC SSD inside, put in a couple of years ago, and trim enabled. On trying to start, gray screen, no icon. Here is what I tried (along with help from Apple):

Resetting pram.
Resetting power manager.
Starting with command/R to access recovery volume.
Using external boot backup, USB port, and holding down option key.
Attempting to access internet archive (not sure right word) by using command/option/R.
Starting from an install disk in the optical drive.

None of this was successful. Every attempt resulted ONLY in a gray screen.
Finally, giving up after trying the optical drive, restarted holding down the trackpad to eject the CD. This happened, disk came out, and suddenly the drive came to life again. I don't know if this was chance or somehow holding the trackpad down had an effect.

After the drive back again, I tried ALL the steps that Cindori suggested to inactivate trim and none of the steps had any effect whatsoever. So don't know if this is going to be a continuing problem or not as I can't inactivate trim. I did trash Trim Enabler and cleaned caches and did maintenance with Onyx so hopefully will not be a continuing problem.

In any case, has taken a few days to deal with so far.


How can I change the number of times my iphone tries to notify me when I receive an SMS message? I would like to change the number of times my phone 'pings' me when I receive an SMS message.

I'm not sure who decided that 2 pings was enough and there would be no visual indicators but I would like to at least change the number of times it tries to tell me I got a message.

You can go to Settings > Notifications > Messages and change the Repeat Alert option to Never. This will stop it from bugging you twice!

Here's a quick & easy-to-understand GIF tutorial on how to change the number of repeated alerts on iPhones. Just in case anyone needs a visual:

http://giftutors.com/blog/change-repeat-settings-alerts/

Basically, go to: Settings > Notifications > Messages > Repeat Alerts > Choose Never (for no repeated notifications at all)

NOTE: This is for iOS 8.


What functionality of iTunes is not available anywhere else? I commonly use iTunes to add items to iPods and iPhones. However, I'm using Ubuntu more and more and I'm really liking it.

Ubuntu has some apps that replicate iTunes, but some features are either hard-to-find or missing. So my question:

What functionality of iTunes is not available anywhere else?

iTunes match is a huge feature for the iCloud integration features for easy streaming and syncing of playlists and metadata across iOS and Mac/PC. Ping is unique, though few would argue this is highly useful.

iTunes has no unique functionality. Pretty much anything else is better than iTunes, except maybe Windows Media Player.