No longer an option to upload to iCloud with iTunes Match and iTunes 12.2.2? I've been trying out the new Apple Music service and saw some odd behaviors, so decided I should update my iTunes to 12.2.2 (I think I was on 12.0 or 12.1 previously).  Since the update, there is no longer any way that I can see, to add a track (one that I added to the library manually, for example) to the iCloud library.

Where did this feature go?  We used to be able to just right click the track and Add to iCloud Music Library, but no longer.  Also almost all of my tracks no longer have any indication of an iCloud Status, and of those that do - many are inexplicably not present in my local library and indicate that they need to be downloaded.

What gives here?  I haven't been able to find anything on these specific issues in my searches.  Is there some known problem here or am I just not understanding how iCloud music works now?  In fact I can't even find any evidence of iTunes Match existing any longer in iTunes.  No menu items, no preferences, etc.

To be clear, this has nothing at all to do with iOS and is concerned strictly with iTunes on OS X (Mavericks in my case).

EDIT:  To add to this, I just noticed that only a few of my tracks still have the "Add to iCloud Music Library" option - specifically those tracks which are marked as duplicates.  Not a single other track in my entire library of 15,421 tracks, has that option anymore despite being an iTunes Match subscriber.  Can anyone shed some light on this?

EDIT 2:

OK, after a bit more investigation I think it may just be that the way iTunes handles iCloud music has changed with the introduction of Apple Music.  According to this apple KB article, it sounds like your entire library is now automatically uploaded and matched.  But what still confuses me is that there is absolutely no possible way Apple could have matched all of my music - because some of it is original work created by myself that exists nowhere else.  And those tracks - and many others - are also still missing the Add to iCloud Music Library option.  Are they added anyway but there is simply no longer any indication in iTunes of this fact?  If I attempt to delete one of these tracks, I'm given the option to Remove Download, so presumably they are indeed already in the cloud (and were before I upgraded iTunes, so that is in fact what I expect).  Maybe the real question here is:  Why does iTunes no longer display an indicator for tracks that have been uploaded to the cloud?

I have just experienced the same thing and found that it looks like iTunes Match might have just been renamed and the settings moved.

Note for future readers, I am using iTunes version 12.2.2.25 (64 bit) on Windows 10.

Make sure you are logged in to the iTunes Store and also make sure your computer is authorized (see the Store menu item), and then try going to File > Library > Update iCloud Music Library. After selecting that menu item, look in the top right corner (where you would normally see anything downloading) and you should see this:

After waiting for this to finish, my entire iTunes Match library appeared back! (This took about 10 minutes or so).

Also, to answer your question about the display indicator, as far as I can tell this behaves exactly as iTunes Match did for me previously. I can see which songs are downloaded, and I can choose to download those that haven't by clicking the cloud symbol.

Open iTunes, go to iTunes > Preference > General, and check iCloud Music Library > click OK.


Move large files to iPad through Lighting cable Is there a simple / clever method to move large video files from a NAS => Mac => Firewire => iPad?  The goal is speed: preference is to avoid Wifi.   Assume that I would like to transfer a 600MB home video of a wedding.
As I understand it, the choices for transferring files are:

lightning (fastest)
wifi
bluetooth

If you have iCloud, Dropbox, or Box you can use these services to copy the files to your ipad. You can move the video clip to icloud, for example and move it from icloud to ipad or just use it while its stored in iCloud.


What's the safest way to ship diskettes? I would like to have some original software shipped to me but I am afraid that it might become damaged in shipping.

The software are the original boot disks and disk tools that came with my first Mac SE and some miscellaneous original goodies. They are ~25 year old 400K low coercivity diskettes which is the reason for my concern. I don't know the strength of the remaining data and don't want it destroyed by security scans as it crosses national borders.

I am afraid of the possibility of magnetic fields further demagnetizing the already weak data on the disk. I have no idea how to recover the data if it is lost. I don't have 400k drives to recreate the disks.

I want to be able to use them on the elderly computer. They were matched for the first release of the model, became lost in a move long ago, and recently relocated.

How best to protect my treasures in transit. What precautions should I ask the borrower to take for returning my original diskettes to me?

Update: The disks are 3.25" (beige plastic hard shell case) 400K disks with no second notch (that indicate a high density, high coercivity diskette). The 400K drives do not recognize the 800K disks I have tried in the drive. It wants its boot disks to access the internal 10 MB disk. :(

Any time I shipped magnetic media, I used the anti-static bags that electronic components came in.  Granted, when you have access to an IT department, they are easily available; we would save them for reuse.  I still do, but my stash isn’t as plentiful as it used to be.

However, you can get reusable zip poly anti static pouches.  They will provide shielding from low level EM fields and are transparent enough that if your package is opened for inspection, the contents are easily identifiable.  I’ve never had any issue with data loss using this method whether shipping in-country or internationally.

You didn’t mention which format the diskettes were; if they were 3.5”  or 5.25” or even the large IBM 8” but typically you could copy the disks so long as the drive was capable of writing it.  For instance, the 3.5” 1.44MB FDD drive could easily handle the 720K disks.  We had a “copyboard” in an IBM AT that would duplicate anything including copy protected disks for Apple.  It didn’t even matter if the OS could read it so long as the drive could.

Along that note, I just recently ran across some Gateway 2000 MS-DOS 6.22 setup disks in a storage box that weren’t exactly put away with the greatest of care (about 25 years old).  I was able to image them and install MS-DOS onto a Virtual Box VM with no issue.  I’d bet your disks are still readable.  If at all possible, I’d make an image for safe keeping (I can walk you through it, but it’s technically a different question).  Oh, and those DOS disks were imaged using a Mac!

Actually, any electrically conducting wrapping that completely covers your diskettes, "Faraday Cage" in which no electric or magnetic fields can penetrate.
For that - Double-wrap your diskettes with aluminium-foil, making sure there is no hole in the wrapping, and it will do the job just fine, protecting your diskettes from electric and magnetic fields.


How do I permanently delete data from a game when I delete it from my iPhone/ipad I have been trying for weeks now to delete a game and all of its data and every time I do this and install the game again it comes back with the previous data. I want to delete the game and start again as a new customer with no pre-existing data. Although it says it will remove the game and all of the data when trying to delete it does not.

Is there a way to permanently delete the data when I delete the game from the iPad and iPhone?

If the game is saving game data via iCloud, the data might have not been deleted when you removed the app from your iOS device.

Go to Settings > General > Usage

There will be a section called iCloud with a Manage Storage option. Tapping this will load all your data stored on iCloud.

Under the Documents & Data section, check to see if your game has data saved to iCloud. If it does, simply tap on it and tap on the edit button in the top right hand corner to bring up the Delete prompt.

Try going into iTunes, goto Store, App Store, and remove it from there as well.

It's worth a shot!


Windows 8.1: how to update Broadcom driver without using external drive I am looking for a way to update a Broadcom driver without using BootCamp or external boot drive.

I have a Macbook pro mid-2012 (non-retina) and successfully had Windows 8.1 running on it, except it does not detect any ethernet and wifi devices.

I used Bootcamp through which I believe I got the latest Windows-support drivers and firmwares.

I do not have access to any external drive to build a boot drive and to any network which I might download softwares directly from a Windows partition. The entry point is the OS X partition.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Download on Mac from http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/downloaddrivers.php

Depending on write support, copy to Windows partition from Mac or from Mac partition in Windows.

If direct install doesn't fix it, try uninstall from Device Manager, reboot & install again - seems to have worked for others.


Disable display of passwords on an iPhone? Once you have defined a passcode to unlock an iPhone, and for every application asking a password, when waiting for a password an iPhone
makes a transient display of any character you type.
It is clear that this transient display was purposefully set in place to help people who have problems with passwords or with the on screen keyboard.
This transient display lasts 3 seconds to avoid too big a security problem. But this is still largely sufficient for anyone behind you to read it really easily.
Moreover this transient display can be easily captured by any camera or
by a software on the iPhone:

I evaluate this echo of any password as a serious risk.
This echo partially exposes a secret.

Is there any simple configuration method to suppress everywhere this mechanism of transient display of any password?

For information, I reported this security problem at Apple:

  Once I have defined a passcode to protect my iPhone, and within every
  application asking me a password, when entering my password iOS makes
  a transient display of any character I type. I guess that this
  transient display of passwords was purposefully set in place to help
  people who have problems with passwords or with the on screen
  keyboard. This transient display lasts 3 seconds to avoid to create
  too serious a security problem. But this is still amply sufficient for
  anyone behind you to read it really easily.

  This transient display can be easily captured by a camera
  surreptitiously activated by a malicious neighbour.

  I didin't find any easy way to block this security weakness with iOS 7
  up to iOS 9.

  How to disable this transient display of any password on iOS?

You can't, at least not in any iOS version that has been released by Apple.

I understand this isn't the answer you were looking for.

The use of TouchID is the only way to kind of get around this issue, but after a reboot, you still have to enter it. Even if you could suppress the characters appearing, you still have to TYPE IN the password, and anyone who could see the letters of the non-suppressed entry string could also see what you're typing even if the entry string was suppressed. Hence why TouchID is really the only way to fly, other than concealing your screen.


Fluctuating maximum battery capacity I've noticed today that my MBP 15" late 2014 maximum battery capacity is fluctuating somewhat.

These two screenshots were taken just seconds apart http://imgur.com/a/jqyZs

Should I be worried? Should I "recalibrate" the batteries?

Thanks!

The system management controller is responsible for reading battery voltages and reporting it to the operating system. You could reset that one time to see if it made a difference. When the output voltage of the battery shifts like that, it's a sign of failure within the battery.

Getting the machine serviced would be the way to fix that if it's not the SMC.

I’ve never heard of this issue, but I think it would be a good idea to calibrate the battery. If you haven’t calibrated it in a while, that very well could be the solution. This is because lithium-ion batteries have micro-controllers which measure the amount of remaining charge and use that information to tell the computer the percentage of remaining battery power, but the micro-controllers aren’t flawless. To get an accurate reading, the battery needs to be fully discharged and recharged. Only using a portion of the battery and recharging can, over time, confuse the micro-controller.


iTunes suddenly rejecting mp4 downloads from torrent networks For a while I have been able to add most videos coming from torrent network without problems unless they were avi encoded. But for a few weeks now, I have had to re-encode all of the mp4 videos that I download using Handbrake which is not very practical.

Why is this? Does everyone face the same issue as I do?

iTunes v 11.1.5
OS X 10.9.2 (Mavericks)

MP4 is a media container format which can be encoded with many different video and audio codecs like DivX, Xvid, H.264, H.263, MPEG-4, AC3, WMA, AAC, etc. While iTunes only support few video and audio codec like MPEG-4 video codec and AAC audio codec; H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec. If the MP4 video is encode with iTunes unsupported video or audio codec, iTunes will not add and play it.

Sometimes, even if the MP4 is in the right video and audio codec that iTunes supports and we can successfully add and play MP4 in iTunes, but if the MP4 video does meet the technical specifications for iOS devices like video size, bitrates, sample rate and etc, we will fail to sync and transfer the MP4 video from iTunes to iPod, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV and etc.

A recommended solution is to convert iTunes unsupported MP4 to a more compatible MP4 video format using HandBrake.

Video is complex!
MP4 is just a container!

Video have these key elements
Containner, Video, Audio, subtitle, Chapter info, METADATA cover pictures.

I could tell you what iTunes or iOS need for video
Containter must be MP4 (m4v m4a) and MOV
Video is H.264 (only 8bit are allowed,not 10bit, r-frame must not excied 16)
Audio (must in AAC, ALAC, or AC3 format, if the video only have mp3 or DTS, it won't add)
Subtitle only in SRT or Closed captions. no ass/ssa allowed.

most video don't come with DETADATA and cover pictures.
only the video from iTunes store or my Torrents.
for example
https://www.nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=800429


Is there a repeating, vibrating timer app for the iPhone that supports app-switching? When studying, I used to use one of those cheap digital kitchen timers that chirps every ten minutes as a little reminder of how fast time was passing -- it helped me keep track of time without the temptation to constantly glance at the clock.

The kitchen timer gave out on me recently, so I've been looking for an iPhone app to replace it. Ideally, it would have an on and off setting, and when on, would periodically vibrate in my pocket every ten or fifteen minutes.

Unfortunately, the apps I've found are quite chintzy and don't support switching between apps, or stop as soon as the phone is set to sleep -- and either of these is a deal breaker.

Are there any iPhone apps out there do what I'm looking for?

(I've been burned by a couple of paid apps that turned out to be lemons, so I'd be most grateful.)

I would suggest you use an interval timer like this. IntervalTimer

Just customize it to your needs and don't care about the high and low intensity options it has. If you adjust them you can have a perfect vibrating timer

if you're looking for a great and simple interval timer this one's one of the best
https://appsto.re/us/U8427.i


Is it possible to hide my device's UDID from iOS apps? A few days ago I read an article how iOS app developers can uniquely identify my iOS device using its UDID. The thought of various apps being able to track me (with an ID attached) is somewhat unnerving. Also, I do not feel that I am getting a service of higher quality in exchange for letting developers learn about my preferences and habits. While Apple is apparently moving towards deprecating UDIDs, it will take time. Thus, my question: can I somehow restrict access to my device's UDID?

In a word, no, it's currently available for any App to read, and then subsequently use as it sees fit.  However, Apple recently made clear that they would not approve future Apps that request it, and so it's use will be negated over time, but of course this won't necessarily apply to the millions of apps already approved.

It says "Limit Ad tracker". You can chose it to be on or off. So in other words it will always be ON. That's how I understand it.


Macbook Pro mid-2015 15" swollen battery I bought the MBP around 2016 April. Few months ago, around 2018 Nov, bottom of the device appears a bit uneven, with slight gap with my desk. Over past few months, it wobbles more and more serious. Today I brought it to Apple Store Singapore for diagnostic, specialist at Genius Bar confirmed that it's caused by swollen battery. Consider it was just after about 2.5 years use, I find it hard to believe. According to the staff, it depends on usage. If under heavy usage or often charge it overnight, it's normal that MacBook Pro's battery can become swollen pretty soon.

My battery charge cycle is under 300, battery life drops a bit but still strong (9 hours instead of 10). I rarely charge overnight, normally turn AC power off and leave my MBP in sleep mode. I do use my MBP heavily though, say 10 to 13 hours a day. However, I still find it hard to accept the explanation given by Apple Singapore.  I wonder if other MBP 15" users experience the same? Or... am I the isolated case?

-- edit

To make the question more specific, is it generally expected that, Macbookpro battery will start swelling after 2-3 years use if laptop usage is heavy, e.g. 10-13 hours a day? The concern is not about the slightly reduced battery life (the battery life is still strong), but the physical expansion. I'm asking this because I've used few other laptops before, among which I never experience battery swelling except one (after near 5 years use). If the experience with my MBP is aligned with most other users, which means it's just a matter that I should adjust my expectation, and include the near SGD300 battery cost per 2-3 years into my next purchaser's consideration; Otherwise, I will try to ask them to consider replacing without me paying the full cost.

-- update 2019/6/21

Apple has just announced a battery recall for Macbook Pro 15" mid-2015 model. They confirmed that these batteries may pose fire safety risk:
https://support.apple.com/en-sg/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall

No, it is not “generally expected” that batteries will swell after a certain amount of time.

What you have is a defective battery - it happens.  It needs to be replaced.

The swelling is caused by trapped off gasses from the chemical reaction not venting properly.  It could swell and not cause any issues or it could go into a condition known as thermal runaway where it will burst and catch fire igniting the off gasses in an uncontrolled manner.

This is not typical, but it does happen. Batteries, like everything else produced by humans, aren’t “faultless.”  Trying to pin down how common it is, is like trying to determine your odds of getting a “lemon” Toyota.  It’s rare, but it happens.

MacBooks from 2013 on started using batteries that were glued into place requiring you to replace the entire top case.

[Note : This comment has been voted down as "low quality". Can the person tell me what is wrong, so that I can improve it ? I thought it might be useful for people to know that the defect can happen, even though the serial number is not eligible by Apple, which can be falsely reassuring. If this information not accurate enough, I will remove my comment altogether.]
Some units can have the battery swell, although they are not eligible for the recall : I bought my MacBook Pro Mid-2015 in November 2016, and its battery started swelling in July 2020.  According to www.chipmunk.nl, my battery was produced in 2016, Week 33, which is within the timeframe reported by Apple (Sep 2015-Feb 2017).  The whole computer was manufactured in 2016, Week 35.
My cycle count was very low (22), and the Apple shop technician told me it that this increases the risk of having the battery swell.
They charged 249 euros for the battery replacement (including the top case).
I hope that Apple will revise its eligibility criteria to include more serial numbers, when a significant number of cases will be reported.


How to make a portable, cross-platform, TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt USB stick? I'm using VeraCrypt, a fork of TrueCrypt.  TrueCrypt had a mode called "Traveller Mode" on Windows, that allows for the encrypted volume/file to be accessed without requiring an installation of TrueCrypt itself.

Unfortunately this functionality is not in the Mac version (nor is it in VeraCrypt).  I want to have a USB stick that will be accessible on both Mac and Windows (with the password), without anyone having to install anything first.

I have tried creating two volumes using FAT format - 1 that is encrypted and 1 smaller one that is not, then placing a copy of the installed VeraCrypt.app onto the unencrypted volume.  Unfortunately that copy of the app crashes when launched on a computer without VeraCrypt installed.

Is there a way to create a portable, cross platform, encrypted USB stick with VeraCrypt or TrueCrypt on a Mac running OSX Mavericks and if so, what is it?

Format the stick in FAT format, then create truecrypt image on it.


iTunes doesn't open, no error messages or anything, not even when executed through terminal I just updated to iTunes 12, and I when I open it, nothing happens. The icon on the Dock doesn't even bounce. When I start it in the Terminal, nothing happens either, no messages. When I open it with sudo, the application does show up in the dock with a dot, but no messages or UI.

I don't think it has anything to do with my user profile since it does not work in sudo either, it does come closer to work though, but it's a very very small difference. I have rebooted the computer, obviously.

I also tried reinstalling it, it's been stuck on "moving files to their right places" with 1 minute left for 7 hours.

"1 minute left" is the sign for "I'm doing your user stuff right now, I have no clue when it will finish, 'cos that depends on how much stuff you've got" … but if you've force-quit it, you broke it & will have to start over.

There is similar confusion at OS updates, the "doing your user stuff" part apparently cannot be predicted anywhere near as well as the initial processing/update, so you get a "1 minute" that can take hours. Patience is a virtue; in fact patience should be directly proportional to the time since your last solid backup.

I'd clear the saved state for starters & see how that goes …
~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.iTunes.savedState

Try opening in Safe Mode.

Command + Option keys when launching iTunes


Restoring MBP with macOS that is installed on an external hard drive A work colleague many many years ago helped me with this setup. I don't know what all he did, I just know it has worked perfectly for years.

He connected an external hard drive to my Mid-2015 MBP and installed High Sierra on it. I use the external drive for home stuff (finances, email, etc.) and the laptop itself (internal drive) has Mojave installed and is used for work-related activities. This allowed me to travel for work and only needed to carry one computer. When I power on the MBP, I simply press the option key at bootup and select work or home and the system will go into the appropriate OS. I no longer need to use the internal drive for work and would like essentially move everything on the external drive to the internal drive (the external drive is a few years old anyway and should be replaced). The internal drive is 512GB and the external is only 244GB (or something like that) so it's smaller than the internal drive.

How can I replace the internal drive contents with that of the external drive? I don't mind googling it but I need help with terms to search for. My mac skill level is pretty basic.

Carbon cloner did the trick perfectly.

It wiped the internal drive (I have a time-machine backup of the internal drive so I can get data if necessary), cloned the external drive to the internal drive. I then shut down the MBP, disconnected the external drive, and powered the MBP backup. It was identical to the external drive, so much so that I thought I double checked to make sure I hadn't unplugged the drive USB device.

Carbon Cloner has a trial version (5 free uses)! Nice!

Do a google search for macOS patcher. You will see the latest three mac os software to download. Choose your os and install the utility.

The utility will let you download the full installer from Apple (not the small file that the app store gives you)

After the app finishes downloading the full os installer, the app will ask you if you want to install it to a usb key or to an external drivee. enter image description here


Can't download previously purchased app I need to download an app from the iTunes store and have recently changed my Apple ID. I previously purchased this app with my old account and when I try to re-download it the iCloud symbol is the only option available. When I click on the iCloud icon, however, I cannot download it.

If as you say, you changed the Apple ID, the stuff from previous Apple ID is NOT accessible with new ID.

To get there you must use old Apple ID.

If by iCloud icon, you mean this:

This is the icon that indicates that you have purchased this app already. Tapping on it will download the app.


iTunes, Proxy Authentication and NTLM I am attempting to use iTunes through a work proxy.

When loading iTunes, it prompts me to enter a username and password for the http and https proxy servers, but fails, saying the password was incorrect.
The pattern is that, the dialog will appear, details entered, and it will then ask for the http or https details, then repeat again and again.

I have tried DOMAIN\username, like, NTADMIN\bob
My network account is not locked
Sometimes, after entering my username & password on the first few times, I'm able to see some album art start to load.  So, on some instances, I'm getting through the proxy.
My password is definitely being entered correctly....  Yes, I'm sure, and yes it works.
Network Connectivity Tests show:

Network interfaces verified
Internet connection verified
Secure link to iTunes Store failed.

(Technical) I have deleted my keychain & even deleted all settings and installed.
(Technical) iTunes is one of the only applications that don't work with the proxy.
(Technical) I have managed to get it working if I specify my proxy as my local CNTLM application.  But I don't want to set my Windows system level proxy to always go through that.

Is there a way to force iTunes to use a specific proxy, rather than use the Windows system one?

Try CNTLM to convert your NTLM proxy to a local proxy without authentication. In this way iTunes is able to connect to the internet.

the key here is to enter the socks address manually, worked for me! :)


Can I use my iMac as a display with my MacBook? Is it possible to attach my MacBook to my iMac and use the iMac as a display? What cable/connector would I need?

EDIT:

I have the newest MacBook and a Late 2009 21.5" iMac.

Which model of iMac do you have? Only the latest 27-inch model supports video in physically. There are software solutions if you don't have this model.

I'm not sure if this is the latest solution (I expect not), but it was a software solution to this problem. http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html

I'm sure I've seen something more recent than this, but can't find a link to it unfortunately.

Update: Found the software I was thinking of, the developers site is here: http://www.screenrecycler.com/ScreenRecycler.html

Yes, it's possible with 27" iMac, but not sure about 21.5" one. The cable is "MagSafe connector".

Which iMac do you have ?

Please refer to Apple website for more info.


I can pair my PlayStation DualShock 3 Controller, but why are the buttons mixed up? I was able to follow the steps here to connect my DualShock 3 controller to my MacBook running OS X 10.9.4, however now the direction pad, trigger, and shape buttons are all mismatched when I try using them in games or my web browser.

I've tried in Chrome, Firefox, and Portal 2. They all detect the controller but identify the wrong buttons when I press them.

How do I fix this?

Unfortunately there are few Mac games that come with PS3 controller support. Portal 2 isn't one of them—like most Steam games, it only natively supports the Xbox 360 controller.

You can map controller actions to keyboard and mouse events with software like ControllerMate. It has a learning curve, but it's very configurable. To make a Portal 2 configuration for your PS3 controller, the main problems are the analog sticks, which are sometimes difficult to work with in ControllerMate.

Here are two screenshots from my configuration that should help:

You can make a virtual mouse for the right stick with “Create Virtual Device”

There's some good documentation for all the building blocks here.

Emulate the controller as a Xbox360 controller


Is it possible to improve the condition of MacBook battery showing "Condition: Replace Soon"? I have a 2008 MacBook aluminium 13" (Model Identifier: MacBook5,1) which has started showing "Condition: Replace Soon" to describe the battery, so a couple of questions:

what is used to determine this?
does it matter?
is there anything I can/should do to correct it? (Let the battery exhaust itself repeatedly, for example)

Go to the Apple menu and choose "About This Mac"
Click "More Info..."
Click "System Report..."
Under Hardware, click "Power"
Under "Battery Information" you'll find "Health Information"
Under Health and Information you'll see "Cycle Count" and "Condition"

Cycle count can drive condition: over a certain numbers of charges and discharges condition will automatically drop. Given the age of your computer, my guess is you have a high cycle count.

i guess 517 cycle count is not that much..
mine is a late 2008 aluminum macbook , the cycle count is 1598, and it just started showing to replace battery soon yesterday...


How can I make Safari show the URL when I hover over a link? Safari 5.0.1 on OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) doesn't seem to have any status bar in which the URL of a link shows when the user moves the cursor over a link (without clicking)   All other browsers I've ever used do this.

Is there a user preference checkbox somewhere for this?

There are two options. One is a setting, and the other is a workaround.

Here are instructions on how to toggle the setting using the Menu Bar:

Go into the View menu.
Select "Show status bar".
Now, there will be a URL that pops up when you hover over a link, and also tells you if it's going to be in a new tab:

You can also press ⌘ + / to toggle this setting at ease.

The second option is a workaround for when you drag links. Here's how to get this feature to appear:

Click and drag the link out of where it will originally appear.
At your mouse will be a small box telling you the title of the new window and its URL, although it may be shortened.
You can also drag the link to the plus sign in your tab list, out of the window, or in a folder/the desktop to open that URL in a new tab, new window or save it to your computer, respectively.

The URL of links your hover over is shown on the gray status bar at the bottom of the page. The status bar is not always present in a new window, but you can turn it on from View > Show Status Bar or with the ⌘/ shortcut.

Some pages can hide the status bar and it does not restore if you go to a new window. However File->New Window should always show this.


Password managers for iOS With the whole Heartbleed mess, I figured it was about time to start using a password manager. After doing some research, here is the list of things that I want and don't want in this kind of software:

I want:

Open source, or at least with source code available, so that people can check for themselves for security holes (though Heartbleed
happened in another piece of open source code, so who knows now...).
Iphone support. My phone is the one thing I always carry with me, no matter what desktop computer I'm using.

What I DON'T need:

Dropbox syncing. I don't want my passwords to be on any cloud, thanks.
Form autocomplete. I can type my own passwords, thanks.

After searching for a bit, it looks like miniKeePass is the software that fits my needs best. Can anyone comment on its security track record, or suggest alternatives?

Thanks.

I personally love 1Password, it is a great solution for iOS and Mac, they have an really good and fast syncing option (you can choose if you want to use iCloud, Dropbox or you can sync with the Mac app via wifi), the Developer just updated the app for iOS 7.

The only disadvantage per your requirements is that it is not open-source.

I am using an app call "one key" and it was excellent. It not only store your password, it can store others things that need security. It provide 128-bit encryption which is really high security for iOS device.

Please note normal iOS apps are not open source which is to prevent people discover bugs and security holes.


Movies button missing in Purchased items in iTunes I've bought some movies in iTunes on my Mac. Now I want to download them to my Windows XP PC in iTunes. (Both machines have the latest iTunes version installed.)

According to the description at the apple web site, I should see the movies in the "Purchased" section of the quick links. I can get to the "Purchased" section fine, except that I don't get a "Movies" button at all.

Any ideas about how to get the movies button (or get the movies to the other pc in an other way)?

You're probably in an iTunes-restricted country. While any user may re-download apps and books, re-downloads of music and movies are restricted to certain countries.

You'll need to manually copy the movies over to the XP computer. Note that you will need to activate iTunes with your AppleID to be able to play them.

That's because most movies are not yet available to redownload like music and apps are.


In iOS 9, where is the "Usage" function in Settings? In iOS8's Settings page, I used to be able to go to "General" then "Usage" and it would tell me how much free space is available on the device, and how much space each app uses.

Where is this now in iOS9?

It has moved to a little different location. To access the same screen, go to: Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage

Moreover, iOS9 now has a search function inside "Settings". A user can search for a term, such as "Usage" in the search bar to access the corresponding settings.

For iOS9 users the app size can be checked from Setting>general>storage & icloud usages


Facebook notifications are shown multiple times Whenever I get a new Facebook notification, the same message is displayed 20 times in the notification center. I noticed this is only the case for Facebook, and I've been experiencing this since I upgraded to Sierra.

Any ideas on how to solve this, or what might be the cause of this issue?

Edit:
There is a thread on Apple's discussion forum about this issue. However, not solved yet.

There's a different thread on the official Apple forums that claims to have a solution:

disable all facebook related notification settings in system settings -> notifications.
remove your facebook account from system settings -> internet accounts.
remove all facebook related objects from your keychain and restart your mac.
log on to facebook, you will be asked if you want to use this account for mac system integration, click on later.
in facebook go to settings -> security -> where you're logged in -> delete all old session, especially the ones under "Apple OS Integration".
clear safari cache and restart your mac.
log on to facebook, you will be asked if you want to use this account for mac system integration, this time click ok and check the notifications setting, if everything ok, restart your mac once again.

One useful method would be to turn off notifications in the settings then turn it back on. If that doesn't work, try rebooting your system too.

To Reboot The iPhone:
Hold the power button for a few seconds, then slide at the top to power off. Wait a few seconds then hold the power button for a few seconds to power on the iPhone.

To Reboot The iMac:
Click "Restart" in the Apple menu. If that isn't possible, press the iMac power button to power off then press it again to power on.

To Reboot On Windows:
Click the Windows icon, then click the short arrow, which will give more options. Click "Restart" to restart the Windows system.


Can playing music at full volume on a 15" MBP (2017) damage the speaker irreversibly? A few weeks ago, the left speaker on my MacBook suddenly "popped" when I received a notification. The volume was not high and no music was playing. It seems that the speaker was overdriven and pretty much self-destructed. It sounded like a very loud bang and the speaker never worked correctly again afterwards. The moment it happened, I noticed a fair amount of heat coming out of the part of my MacBook's chassis where the speaker is hosted.

As this failure was not my fault (I was not playing any sounds at a volume you'd consider reckless), it was replaced by Apple under Warranty.

Since I now have a fully functional MacBook again, I'd like to enjoy its speakers but I'm very wary of the fact that they're vulnerable.

Are the 2017 15" MacBook Pro's speakers designed to withstand playing music (primarily Electronic Dance Music in my case) at the maximum volume with negligible wear to the speaker?
Given that I generally play music no louder than at 50% volume, will this reduce the risk of damage to the speaker to a negligible level such that long-term use is unlikely to affect the speaker?

Yes, high volume on an underpowered amp, can damage your speakers.

The problem comes in when the audio starts to clip or distort - the loud "pop" you heard is a good example of what can damage a speaker.

There's lots of discussion about this on AV forums.

  Are the 2017 15" MacBook Pro's speakers designed to withstand playing
  music (primarily Electronic Dance Music in my case) at the maximum
  volume with negligible wear to the speaker?

That depends.  At what input level was the music recorded?  If you must crank up the volume because you can't hear it (assuming your hearing is good), then it was recorded to low.  If you simply need more volume on a consistent basis requiring you to be at max, it's time for an external amplifier and speaker setup.

  Given that I generally play music no louder than at 50% volume, will
  this reduce the risk of damage to the speaker to a negligible level
  such that long-term use is unlikely to affect the speaker?

That depends.  At what input level was the music recorded?  If the input was very high, playing at 50% might still be "too loud" for the speakers.  The key here is clipping and distortion.  If the sound begins to distort but you need the volume at that level, it's time to get an external amplifier and speaker setup.

I personally had noise (pops and distortion) on my speakers and I solved it by using an external DAC (digital audio converter) and external speakers (Bose Wave Radio).

Finally, the one thing that I learned (from an audio engineer) from trying to set up an audio presentation in a gymnasium (worst case scenario) is it's better to have more "larger" amplified speakers at lower volume than to have fewer speakers driven at or near maximum volume.  The quality of the sound is just immensely better and you don't risk damaging your equipment

No. They rigorously test these scenarios before they role out.


Search text annotations in Mac Preview I've added text annotations to a pdf with Tools > Annotate > Text. I'd like to search the text for a specific word, like 'Todo'. Unfortunately, doing a cmd+F to search for this text doesn't work.

Is there a way to make text annotations searchable (by this I don't mean highlights and notes, which I know can be searched)?

I'm using the latest version of Preview (Version 8.1 (877.7)) on OS X El Capitan.

You have found what I consider to be a bug in the spotlight importer for several types of documents that Preview can use. I tested making an annotation with a slightly nonsensical word that spotlight had zero matches for on my Mac. (at least until this text gets indexed as a safari history item)

I tested a PDF and a PNG file with text annotations and none of the importers put that text into spotlight. I have filed a bug with Apple on that, but I would do so as well yourself. If the person screening the bug thinks it's a bug, usually one well document report gets things on the list to be fixed. If Apple considers this a feature, normally many reports asking for the same thing will be needed to change the minds that think not indexing annotations is actually beneficial to the system design.

On the outside, we don't know and can only file reports to change the things we want changed.

Here are the terminal commands I used to verify the bug in case someone has a workaround or knows of a better spotlight importer for PDF/PNG that would index the annotations.

mac:Desktop me$ mdfind ZZqwijibo
mac:Desktop me$ strings annontation.pdf |grep qwijibo
(ZZqwijibo) /AAPL:AKExtras 95 0 R /DA (/Helvetica 59 Tf 0.987 0.129 0.146 rg)
(ZZqwijibo) /DA (/Helvetica 59 Tf 0.987 0.129 0.146 rg) /F 4 /Q 1 /Subtype

The text is plainly stored on the filesystem, but the PDF importer is skipping the annotation text altogether like you report.

May be this helps: you can view all the text annotations in the inspector window. Not sure how to search through these for a keyword though.


iOS Wifi Connections - Search Domains In iOS Wifi settings, each Wifi connection has a Search Domains section, usually blank.

What is this used for?

A Search Domain is simply a convenience that allows the system to convert host names to Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN).  Anyplace you might use a FQDN, such as in the location bar of Safari or as an argument to ssh, you can use a simple host name.  If the system can resolve that host name to an IP address (e.g. localhost -> 127.0.0.1) then it will use that.  If that doesn't work, then the system will try appending the search domain to the host name and try again. If you specified more than one search domain, it will try them each in order.

If you are typically connecting to other Mac's on your LAN, then setting the search domain to local will make it easier to use just the other computer's names everywhere.  If you are in a corporate environment and all your servers are available at name.example.com, then setting a search domain of example.com will allow you to access them by just using name.

Those are the two most typical use cases.  When using a public Wi-Fi network, you should leave the Search Domain blank/empty to avoid accidentally connecting to some computer you didn't mean to connect to.

Same as in OS X when you look in the "Network" System Preference.
LINK


Completely remove Google Backup and Sync from my Mac I'm running macOS High Sierra and sometime ago I uninstalled Google Drive from my machine. OR so I thought. Today I see the Backup and Sync app in my Applications folder and when I try and delete it I see the following error.

I went to my Library folder and deleted the Google folder from there. I also deleted anything that sounded like Google from Library/Application Support.
However, I still get the same message when I try and move the application to Trash.
How do I get rid of this completely?

Moving of the Backup and Sync from Google app to the Trash and emptying it only removes the application bundle. It doesn't uninstall the Finder Sync Extension, application script,
 APFS container, preferences, etc.

You'd also want to remove the following & reboot:

~/Library/Application\ Scripts/com.google.GoogleDrive.FinderSyncAPIExtension
~/Library/Caches/com.google.GoogleDrive
~/Library/Containers/com.google.GoogleDrive.FinderSyncAPIExtension
~/Library/Cookies/com.google.GoogleDrive.binarycookies
~/Library/Group\ Containers/google_drive
~/Library/Preferences/com.google.GoogleDrive.plist

macbook air 2015, high sierra
It was slowing down system, but wouldn't even 'open' when clicked to follow any suggested fixes for disabling.

it was taking over 30% of cpu -
eventually, I went to:

activity monitor/select item/force quit
This did the job of disabling and I had my system back to usual speed


Getting Silverlight to work on Mac OS X Yosemite I'm trying to get Silverlight to work on Mac OS X, any browser would do. I'm not getting much success at all so far, nor help from the Web.

1) Silverlight + Mac OS X Yosemite

To start with, can anyone tell me if this Silverlight test works for them on Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10.1) ?

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/iis-smooth-streaming/demo/

This should offer a menu and various content, mostly pictures. (As opposed to a big black square of nothing.)

2) Troubleshooting

I'm using a MacBook Pro from Mid-2014. I had Silverlight version 4 installed before but never got it to work (I don't know if this was before or after my Yosemite update.)

I've tried uninstalling and re-installing Silverlight but without success.

To install, I'm merely using the Silverlight.dmg file and its installer to install.

Here is what I'm getting so far:

In Firefox: the official "Get Silverlight" page tells me the plugin is installed ("Silverlight 5 (5.1.30514.0)"), however the test page linked above renders black. FYI, the plugin is set on "Always activate" in about:addons and disabling AdBlock did not help.
In Chrome: I had to use the "Get more extensions" option inside of Chrome to install. However, the test linked above merely offers an "Install Microsoft Silverlight" icon.
In Safari, the test seems to render okay but then I get an error from Safari itself: "A problem occured with this webpage so it was reloaded", leading to the page being reloaded automatically until Safari gives up and tells me that an error repeatedly occured with the page.

Any pointer welcome.

Under Safari/Preferences/Security click the last box that states "Internet Plug-ins: Allow Plug-ins"

So simple and it worked for me running Safari on 2008 MBP with OX X Yosemite

I had the same problem also but found that under Safari → Preferences → Advanced
→ Internet plug-ins I had checked stop internet plug-ins to save power. Apparently applies even if you are off battery power.


Cannot enter Time Machine I have been running Time Machine for about 10 months with no problems. Now when I try to enter time machine, nothing happens. Just like in other posts I have read. I run Lion with no apparent problems and the backups work fine as I can see them in Finder and access the files there. The problem is that clicking to enter Time Machine does nothing, with no error or anything.

Any ideas? My backup is to a USB-connected dedicated 1 TB hard drive.


How can I turn off iCloud storage space warning notifications? On my Mac I've been getting many pop-up and email notifications about my meager iCloud storage space.

I only really use iCloud with iOS and chose to sign in to my same account on my Mac.

There's no chance that I'll upgrade so how can I turn off these Mac warnings that iCloud storage is close to full?

I think your options are limited here.

Turn off iCloud Backup altogether.
Some info on how to selectively or collectively switch off iCloud is here: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2613?locale=en_GB&viewlocale=en_US
Back up less, e.g. by deciding not to back up your camera roll. I carefully manage what gets backed up and what not (and also which app gets mobile internet access).
To see which apps on your phone are taking up the most space follow these steps:

Open the settings app
Tap iCoud
Scroll down to Storage & Backup and open it
Tap Manage Storage
Select your iPhone

If you're on Windows 10 (unlikely in this forum...), type in the Windows 10 search box Settings and select "Settings Trusted Windows Store App"

Click "System"
Click "Notifications & Actions"
Scroll down to "Show Notifications from these apps"
find "iCloud" and turn it off
This works for other offending app notifications

Just go to your system preferences for ICloud and unclick the square next to notes. After that, click it back on. The notifications will stop.


Show Space/Desktop Number in Mac OS X Lion in Desktop Top Bar In Snow Leopard, it was possible to display the space number in the top right corner of the status bar.

How do you do that in Lion with Mission Control?

This function was removed by design. Lots of people want this back, so perhaps an add on or secret setting can be discovered later, but for now, the answer is no.

TotalSpaces is a good alternative: http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/

TotalSpaces2 have an icon in menubar, like Spaces in Snow Leopard. More intelligent and more powerful application, as the factory default. You can define a grid of spaces, and you can use your fullscreen apps in a new row… This program now available from $18, but the two weeks long trial period is free. See the intro: http://cdn.binaryage.com/totalspaces2-intro.mp4


How to get iMovie, iPhoto & garage band back after rebuilding system? My hard drive malfunctioned and I had to have it replaced with a new one and reboot my Mac. Now iPhoto, iMovie and garage band have all disappeared and are no longer on my Mac. Is there any way to get them back without having to pay for them?

Log into the App Store, and they should be there in the 'Purchases' tab - assuming that when you bought the Mac you told the Store that you wanted to register the apps to your Apple ID.

You cannot ever get them back if they're not in the purchases >-<


How do I delete one of my custom templates in Numbers - OS 10.10.1 I would like to delete one of my custom templates I made in Numbers - in previous OS versions you went to Library>iWork>Numbers>Templates and just trash it - but, since I updated to Yosemite - I only see Keynote in the iWork Library folder? No Numbers? Any ideas?

Thank you.

Rename or delete a custom template
After you install a template, it appears in the My Templates category in the template chooser.

In the template chooser, Control-click the template name, then choose Rename or Delete.

If you’re renaming, type a new name, then press Return.

You can’t rearrange templates; they always appear in the order in which they were added.

In Pages, you can save the template to Desktop and then move it to Trash.  Maybe it works the same in Numbers.


Will older versions of iLife (like 06 or 08 or 09) run on Lion I'm looking and don't see any official word yet from Apple - I wondered if any web sites have reported whether these older versions work a little or at all (or perfectly well with only some little errors).

The Roaring Apps table lists only iLife 11 versions and my attempts at the top 20 results for several google searches shows a lot of content farms gaming the results.

iLife '08 is running fine on my OSX 10.7 computer.

Most non-PowerPC apps will run fine in Lion, so I expect all the versions you mention will be fine.

I don't know from experience, but there are some conversations about it out there. Check these sites:

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1145755.html

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3125500?start=0&tstart=0


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

In general yes. It depends on the monitor, because every monitor has a different definition of "HDR". I'm not sure but I don't believe macOS can output in the HDR10 codec at all. Unless you really need 4k HDR 60Hz then I wouldn't worry about bandwidth, because the typical user will rarely have content that can use all three features at once. For example when you're gaming just switch the monitor to 1080p to get an HDR update every 16.7ms, but when you are photo editing or video streaming switch to 30Hz for a detailed image. But that's on the off chance that it doesn't work all at once. Any other problems you may have won't likely be because of your computers driver if you get a compatible display.

No.  It doesn't support HDR.

From Apple's Tech Specs for the MacBook Pro it supports "Wide Color P3"

HDR (Rec 2020 or BT 2020) is a color space "outside" P3 (as in more color).   So, purchasing an HDR monitor now, you wouldn't be able to utilize it to it's full capability

To utilize HDR, you would need a capable monitor, source and content and unfortunately, 2 out of 3 just won't get you there.


Can receive but cannot make outgoing calls on an iPhone 5S My iPhone 5s which I bought a year ago shows "Call Failed" whenever I hit "send", it doesn't matter which number I'm dialing. I can get incoming calls, FaceTime calls, messages, and apps are working fine. I placed my SIM in another device and mananged to make calls, and I tried putting another SIM in my iPhone, and once again got the instant "Call Failed" message.

Is this more likely to be a software problem or hardware? How can this be addressed?

This happened in my iPhone 4S since one of iOS 7 updates, sent many messages on Apple's contact form, no answer and no fix to date with the latest iOS 8.3, I temporary fix it by dialing *#31#.

It shows a message "Setting Interrogation Succeeded, Calling Line ID Restriction Disabled" and then can call normally.


DNS resolution broken in El Capitan with Thunderbolt Ethernet Adapter on Offline network After upgrading to El Capitan how do I enable DNS resolution on an offline, internal computer network?

Before upgrading to El Capitan I could connect to my internal network, set my DNS and search domain, and I was good to have DNS resolution happen. There was no gateway on the network or DHCP server, just a switch.

Following the upgrade I was no longer able to resolve DNS names internally on a network physically separate from the internet and not connected in any way to the internet. I could ping the hosts on the network by IP address yet not by DNS name.

I tried the usual, flushing the DNS cache, restarting mDNSResponder, and rebooting. None of that helped.

One weird fact is that my /etc/resolv.conf is now blank whereas before the upgrade it showed the list of resolvers my Mac would use.

I imagine El Capitan must have included an update to the OSX DNS resolution system. Can I go and configure it manually? I have been reduced to adding entries to my /etc/hosts file.

I have tried the suggestions mentioned here.

I should mention that my co-worker's computers that are on Yosemite do not experience any issues at all and the Windows computers on the network still resolve names properly as well.

The DNS server is running BIND9 on Ubuntu 14.04 on the regular port 53.

EDIT:

I tried disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP) according to this set of instructions and that did not help at all.

EDIT 2:

Okay, so I found a fix and I probably didn't need to do a fresh install of El Capitan to do it. This is the WEIRDEST bug I have ever encountered on the Macintosh platform. All I had to do was add a Router in my network settings. I just put an arbitrary value in of 1.0.0.1 even though there is no device in my internal network that acts as a router. The mere presence of a value in the "Router:" input field triggered a write of the resolv.conf file and a restoration of the DNS service.

I had the same problem on El Capitan, and was able to resolve it by adding some values to the DNSResponder file, while SIP was DISABLED.

The steps I followed below:

Reboot.
Press Cmd+R to enter Recovery mode.
Open Utilities->Terminal.
Run the command "csrutil disable".
Reboot. You are back in OS X with SIP disabled.
Make the required changes by running the below commands from the terminal:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist AlwaysAppendSearchDomains -bool YES
(This is a single line)

sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

Reboot.
Press Cmd+R to enter Recovery mode.
Open Utilities->Terminal.
Run the command csrutil enable.
Reboot.

After I got back into the OS, I added the search domains back into System Pref -> Network -> Advanced -> DNS Tab.

Search Domains now work once again, where I am able to ping the first two bits of my domain name, and the last 3 are added automatically.

Change "Configure IPv6" from automatic to link-local only.  Works like a champ


Adding alias of an App or actual App onto the right side of Dock How do I do add an app placed on the right side of the Dock as shown?  (On the right of the line separator, along with the Downloads and Trash icons).
This is on a Macbook Air 2015 running Mac OS Catalina, I had this machine since the default OS on Macbook Air 2015.  Probably added the app icon there during Mac OS Mojave.
Reason for asking is that I remember actually adding MacVim.app onto the position as shown but forgot how to duplicate this.  I don't believe I used any non-native stuff to do this.
If anyone knows a better place to ask this question, please tell me.
Thanks.

The dock area on the right side of the line separator is reserved for recently used apps. You can go to System Preferences > Dock and tick Show recent applications in the Dock. However, note that it will only keep recent apps and is not customisable.


How to access history of podcasts I have listened to in iphone? I don't know if this is possible or not: I would like to see the history of all the podcasts I have ever listened to. Is this possible?

I am sure the phone logs this information. I have been wondering the same for as long as the Podcasts app came out in the App Store.

Unfortunately I have failed to find a way to extract data around the play history of my podcasts. I think this is impossible at this time.

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DrRGi. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201859
Scroll down to the bottom of the Listen Now page of the ap. There is a recently played list. It will show back for quite always, not sure how long.


Sync pictures of iPhone with Mac How can I sync the pictures from my iPhone (5, iOS 6) to the Mac (OS X 10.8.2) (but not vice versa) via WiFi but without going through the cloud? In case it matters, I am using iPhoto on the Mac.

Connect the phone to the Mac. Launch iPhoto. Click import.


Trouble With Partitions I'm trying to download an update for a program I use frequently. The program can only run on a non-case sensitive file system, so it can't run on my main partition. I partitioned a second drive that isn't case sensitive so I could download it. That partition is now completely full. I tried partitioning more space but disk utility says "This partition cannot be modified.". Below is a screen shot of disk utility. What can I do to get more space for my second partition? I tried making a third partition, that was non-case sensitive as well to try and merge them together, but disk utility says "This partition cannot be modified." Please help?

Thankfully I just copied everything on my second partition to my main and deleted the second partition and resized it. Thanks a lot guys.


App is stuck installing on my iPhone, how do I fix it? I started updating my Twitter app, but then I lost the internet connection and when I went home I couldn't get it to resume the installation. It stops just past the half way mark with the lines on the icon. It has been like this for months.

How can I unstick the stuck application install?

You mentioned this device was upgraded from iOS 9. In my experience an iPhone that has been upgraded from previous OS that has not had a full restore on it in years is prone to reliability issues like this.

I typically do a restore at least one time per year (I experiment a lot and "cruft up" my phone).

Its a pain however its probably time for a full restore...  The phone will run like new afterwords.

Note: Back up all data before you preform this action, otherwise all data will be lost.

Settings - General - Storage and Icloud Usage - Manage Storage ( On the top ) - Click On App - Then Uninstall


Internet recovery mode not working I have got macbook pro early 2011 model. Initially it came with Mac OS X Lion. Later on I upgraded it to Mavericks.
Recently I thought of upgrading it to Yosemite which I did. On successful installation I realised that It is extremely slow and
found out that it is encrypting my whole hard disk. I left it for hours and hours but it looked like it stuck on that process.
And also did not allow me to stop the process. I turned off my macbook using power button kind of hard stop thing. When I tried to
turn it on, it stuck on safe mode and nothing was happening. I could not log back in and I tried all the diifferent methods like PRAM reset,
safe mode, disk utility tool to repair the disk but nothing seemed to work. Luckily I had backup in Time machine from last
year which restored my system back to Mavericks. I started using it and it was working fine. Yesterday while closing my
system I used Power button and did that forced shut down kind of thing again and since then it is not turning back on properly.
it keeps going to safe mode. From safe mode I tried to restart the system but since then it stuck on Grey Barred Circle thing.

I decided  to use Internet recovery method when all other methods failed including safe mode, pram reset, single user command.
It looked like I will be able to restore my mac using my back up on time machine in external hard disk but it stuck on 85%
twice. And now when I am trying to re-install the orignal version of Lion OS X which came with my macbook using internet recovery mode
it is giving me an error, "you cant upgrade this version because newer version is installed". Please help me. thanks

To use internet recovery you will have to format your boot drive using disk utility ⌘r. After you have formatted the drive you will be able to boot into internet recovery ⌘^r. That will allow you to downgrade back to lion. I hope that this helps.

To fix your Mac, you have to boot onto the Recovery HD, then download the software. For a the official documentation, follow the link. http://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT4718


How can I listen to a voice memo in background like iPod and open some other note taking app on iPhone 4? I tried, but my voice memo gets paused. If this isn't possible, is there any way to import voice memos to ipod (kind of workaround)?

Since Voice Memos both plays and records audio, and recording can't be done in the background as far as I know, then the whole app does not work in the background. That sounds more like a design decision to me, rather than a technical limitation. In theory, Apple could have made the playing audio part of Voice Memos to work in the background.

A very long-winded way to get to do what you need is to import the voice memos to your iTunes library. In iTunes, select your iPhone from the Devices list. One of the tabs (probably Music or Info) has a checkbox that will enable transferring voice memos into iTunes. When this is enabled and you sync your device, the voice memos get imported and a playlist titled "Voice Memos" is created.

At this point, those audio files and the "Voice Memos" playlist should act like any other. You could, for instance, get to the audio files from the "Voice Memos" playlist and then set the metadata for each file by right-clicking it and selecting the Get Info dialog. Useful voice memos can be set to a Media Type of Audiobook--which makes them available to you as audiobooks in the iPod app.

If you make them Audiobooks or basically do anything that sends them to the iPod app; then you could play them in the background while you open your note-taking app of choice.

You do not need to set them as audiobooks, though. Once they're in the voice memos playlist; then  you can sync the playlist as you would any other. The caveat is that without metadata, it becomes hard to find the files in the iPod app. In iTunes, for instance, they show either with a blank artist name or with an artist name of "Untitled". That is why I strongly suggest adding metadata ASAP.

I am just reminded of Dragon Naturally Speaking and Dragon Dictate. I do not have them, but I have heard nothing but great things about them. You may try their apps (one of them is free, I believe). They may offer you better features over the included Voice Memos app. I've seen screenshots where it looks like in addition to having a record option, the UI also has a text field for you to type on.

Hope this helps.

Send/add it to notes and it will play in the background


How do I get my iphone to show up in iTunes 11 consistently? I upgraded to iTunes 11 today and my iPhone rarely shows up in iTunes. It almost never does through wifi (even though wifi syncing is on) and if I connect it with a USB cord, I have to restart the iphone for it to recognize that it is connected.

What could the problem be? (iphone is not jailbroken and has latest iOS and Itunes is just updated) and how could I fix it?

This happens to me, too.  The computer is connected by ethernet to the wifi router.  Sometimes exiting iTunes and the re-launching works to get iTunes to see the iPhone.  (And connecting the iPhone to the computer by cable always works.)

Delete literally everything that has to do with iTunes or Apple from your computer. Start all the way over and download everything again. It was that simple.


Mapping F13, F14, F15 I am a programmer and I would like to map all the unused function keys (from F13 to F19) on my Apple Keyboard to some useful chars like parenthesis: {, },  [, ] and quotes

Is there a free software for Mac OS X 10.7+ that I can use?

Thanks!

You can use a private.xml like this with Karabiner (previously named KeyRemap4MacBook):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>test</name>
    <identifier>test</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F13, KeyCode::BRACKET_LEFT, VK_SHIFT</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F14, KeyCode::BRACKET_RIGHT, VK_SHIFT</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F15, KeyCode::BRACKET_LEFT</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F16, KeyCode::BRACKET_RIGHT</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Change for example KeyCode::BRACKET_LEFT, VK_SHIFT to whatever key combination inserts { in your keyboard layout.

What about karabiner app?

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

Hope it will help


Contact sync woes with Google I'm struggling to come up with a rational scheme for managing sync between my mac laptop, my iphone, and google. My corporate center is google apps, so I need to start with contacts from there. However, somehow, I constantly end up with some sync process creating extra copies of my contacts.

I do not have any contact syncing enabled in itunes.

One possible source of distress is that I have two different google accounts: personal and business. The personal account is set to sync contacts via an 'Account' of type 'Exchange', the work ones come in via a card-dav account (I think, the phone doesn't actually tell you what these things are once they exist).

You can easily find out where the duplicate contacts come from by going to your Contacts app on your iPhone and tapping on Groups. Then uncheck your Exchange account and see whether the duplicates persist.

If you are sure that there are no common shared contacts between your personal and your business accounts (Exchange vs CardDAV), I would suppose the duplication comes at the Mac sync stage.

See this for difference between syncing with CardDAV and Exchange.

It is true, however, that once shown on your iPhone, you cannot tell the difference between the two just by looking at the contact entry.


Get current path of Automator app I am trying to create an Automator application which I will be distributing to other users on the network. The automator app will be accompanied by a ZIP file and a PKG installer file.

I need to run the PKG installer file the automator app. For this I'm trying to use the Run Shell Script using the following command:

open gdata.pkg

The problem I'm having is that Automator cannot find this file. I think it doesn't pick up the current path. I tried changing it to following ways:

Experiment #1:

cd $@; open gdata.pkg

Experiment #2:

open ./gdata.pkg

Both didn't work for me. Automator keeps giving error that it couldn't run the script. How do I accomplish this here?

My next step after this would be to decompress the accompanied ZIP file onto a new folder on user's desktop.

Use a Run AppleScript action with the following to get the path:

POSIX path of (path to me)

When run in the workflow, this provides the path to Automator.app, but when run by launching the saved application, this provides the path to the application.

I'd post the answer here, but this article already fully captures it, so shrug:

http://albertech.blogspot.com/2011/08/get-path-of-running-script-with.html


How to reset Mac OS X text substitution? Whenever I type "foo" it gets replaced by "bar". It is working system wide. I can see this behavior in Chrome, TextEdit and other apps. Even partial text like "Somefoo" gets converted to "Somebar". After initial search, I tried changing settings in "Language & Text". I can't find any entry for "foo" or "bar" in it. I tried disabling substitution. It didn't work. I tried "Restore Defaults". It didn't work. I even tried adding rule like "foo" to be replaced by "qux". It doesn't honor this rule and "foo" still gets replaced by "bar". I don't know what else I can try. How can I reset this substitution? Is their any system file or something which I look where these rules are written so I can change it?

I'm using Mac OS X 10.8.4.

Thanks!

Try running these commands:

defaults delete -g NSUserReplacementItems
defaults delete -g NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems

Then quit and reopen some application and test if it worked.

NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems is used in 10.9 and NSUserReplacementItems is used in 10.8 and earlier.

Safari: In any editable text box, right click and do you go to Spelling and grammar and spelling check mark while typing.

Mail: a new mail, right click and going to Spelling and grammar / spelling check and mark While typing or before sending. Also a new option, which is the Check grammar with spelling appears.

TextEdit, very similar to Mail

Pages and Keynote: Right click and Spelling / Check spelling as you type.

Activating "check spelling" from any application, active for all, all you have to activate each application is to "check grammar with spelling" although as far is activated twice since that option I've only seen in Mail and TextEdit.


Is Voice Control still present in Siri supported devices? I had an iPod touch two years ago, and it had voice control features for simple things like "next song", or "what time is it".

Is this functionality still present in the current version of iPhone, or has it been replaced by Siri (which does not work off-line)?

Voice Control is still available on the iPhone 4S, unless you have enabled Siri in the iPhone preferences (listed under the General menu).

If Siri is disabled, holding the Home button will still launch the "classic" voice control, which does work offline, and also supports a whole lot more languages than Siri currently does.

Yes, voice control has been replaced by Siri on supported devices.


How can I get automator to select the correct already open document? I should start by mentioning that I have an app that opens on start-up which allows me to set customized shortcuts and gestures.
In my case:

command+alt+j maximizes the selected window.
command+alt+n maximizes the selected window on the left portion of the screen.
command+alt+m maximizes the selected window on the right portion of the screen.

The projects I work on have pdfs that need to be opened in groups.

So the automator would ideally perform all of this:

Desktop 1: pdf0 opened, maximized.
Create desktop 2, pdf1 opened and maximized to the left, pdf2 opened and maximized to the right.
etc...

The automator I have set up would work perfectly, except the bolded sections don't work as they should. Instead, pdf1 is opened and pushed to the left, then pdf2 is opened just fine, but the pdf1 is the one still "selected" and so pdf1 pushed from being maximized on the left to be maximized on the right... pdf2 still sits in the middle of nowhere, where it originally opened.

Is there anyway I can fix this?

Many thanks!

Nevermind, solved! Just added an applescript for switching windows using the shortcut "backtick"+command


Audio output limiter for Mac? NOT volume control I'm often victim to some loud sound playing on my computer all of a sudden when I have my volume level turned up already to watch a quiet video. I can't turn everything down to the level of the quietest video I will ever watch; that's impractical. I can't even control the volume level of some applications.

Is there an audio proxy or some other plugin that can limit how loudly a sound will be outputted from my built-in audio card? I'd like an audio output level limit control in addition to the system volume control. For example, if I have my volume up all the way to watch a quiet video, any loud sound that plays should sound as if my volume is set to half or something. I've got my Mac connected to external speakers with an analog 1/8" cable.

For a free solution to add a compressor/limiter to the system-wide audio, you can use Soundflower along with Apple's AU Lab:

https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower/releases

https://www.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/

Following these steps:

Install Soundflower and AU Lab.
Open System Preferences > Sound, and set both the Sound Effects and the Output to play through Soundflower (2ch).
Open AU Lab, and in the Document Configuration window, under Factory Configurations, select Stereo In/Stereo Out.
Set the Input to Soundflower (2ch), and the output to Built-in Output.
Click Create Document.
In the Output 1 channel strip under Effects, select Apple > AUDynamicsProcessor.
Adjust the settings in the Dynamics Processor window as desired.

A similar setup using the AUDynamicsProcessor is possible with the commercial Audio Hijack:

https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/

The Hear app also has a limiter, and seems to use less CPU resources than the above. However, it's no longer in developoment and has limited support:

https://www.prosofteng.com/download/?hearmac

While these are answers to the question of how to add a compressor/limiter to the overall system audio, there are some drawbacks. One is that the above solutions may use significant CPU resources. Another is that you'll most likely need to remember to turn it on and off when watching a movie. Otherwise, having the compressor on all the time may reduce the overall dynamic range and sound quality of your computer, for example when playing music.

Rather than compressing or limiting the overall system audio, another approach is to compress then boost the quiet parts of movies so that you don't have to turn up the volume level on your speakers. I use mpv ( https://mpv.io ) to play video, which has several options for precise dynamics control including the "lavfi compander" or the "acompressor.lua" script, with very little impact on CPU usage. VLC also has a built-in compressor found in Preferences (Show all) Audio > Filters > Compressor.

Audio Hijack can be used to route the audio of an app that has no native compression options through dynamics processing. There are also other options with Audio Hijack, such as routing your movie's audio to external speakers, while routing everything else to internal speakers with a separate volume control.


Trackpad and mouse require two taps/clicks to register first click I'm having a horribly frustrating issue that I can't seem to work out. Here are the steps to reproduce the problem, which happens with both an external Logitec VX mouse, the internal MacBook Pro Trackpad and the Magic Trackpad.

I move the pointer to a click location, and tap the trackpad. No click is registered.
I tap the trackpad again, and a click is registered.
I move the pointer to a new location, and tap the trackpad. The click is registered.
I let the pointer hold in a single location for some (as yet undetermined amount of time).
I move the pointer to a click location, and tap the trackpad. No click is registered. It again takes two clicks to "unstick" the click.

This happens all the time when I'm coding, and I'll click and drag something, go to my keyboard, and then go back to the mouse, and I'll have to double click to get a single click to register. If I let the mouse stand idle, I'll have the same issue.

I haven't been able to dig out why this happens. I have, on occasion, been able to restart my MacBook Pro and it would magically start working again, but then at some point it starts to once again misbehave.

Machine Specifications:

MacBook Pro 17-inc, Mid 2010
8GB RAM
OS X Lion 10.7.2

The issue was with jiTouch. Once I uninstalled jiTouch and restarted my computer, everything went back to normal. I'm now using BetterTouchTool, and it seems to be working perfectly.

Had the same issue with my MacBook Pro. Didn't have JiTouch installed.

What seems to have resolved it for me was to adjust my Accessbility settings:

System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Mouse & Trackpad

There is an option, which was unchecked, "Spring-loading delay:"

I moved the slider all the way left to "short".

This seems to have fixed it for me.

I suspect that when I upgraded OS X to El Capitan, the setting took effect, even though it wasn't selected. Selecting it and reducing it to the minimum got rid of this. I suspect this is a kind of "debounce" against accidental clicking of the trackpad.


How do I turn a folder into a .jar file? I currently have modified a program that is a .jar file. I had unarchived it and turned the .jar file into a folder so that I could edit it. Now all I need to do is change the folder back into a .jar file so that it is not accessible like a folder. How would I do this?

Jar files are almost zip files in most cases, but I would use the jar cf command for best results.

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/jar/build.html

You could just use OS X compression and then rename the zip file as .jar - but then you might not have a correct manifest file. It's hard to tell without the exact files in hand.

umm i tried several videos and they all said rename the file


Yosemite update deleted user files - but no old user folder in the system I am wondering, after the OS was updated, a user created the same user account with same name and same full name. So there is no old folder with same name. However, the ID number is 501. Is there still any chance of getting the old files? Disk space taken is only 13 GB.

It is related to How do i get back my old user account after upgrading to OS X Yosemite 10.10.2?

I didn't think it was possible to create the same named account if there is already one there. Upgrades don't remove user accounts or data. Are you sure you didn't reimage it instead? 10.10.2 isn't even available anymore - if you upgrade Yosemite you'd get 10.10.5 from Apple.


Wake on lan with MacBook Air 2018? is it possible to use wake on lan via wifi on the macbook air 2018?

What iOS app (or terminal command?) can you recommend to use?

I want to wake of the MacBook Air with my iPhone which is in the same network.

Take a look to this article:
http://osxdaily.com/2013/12/14/wake-on-lan-mac-iphone/
Let me know if it is useful


How to force iMovie to create iPhoto video thumbnails in the background? I import my videos from my camera into iPhoto along with the stills. Then I use iMovie to create videos from them. Unfortunately every time I open iMovie to get some work done it wants to go through and update thumbnails. Sometimes it is quick, but sometimes it takes quite a while.

Is there a way to get iMovie to make these thumbnails in the background so I am not forced to wait when I open it? I know I can skip it, but usually those thumbnails are for the video I want to work on.

Try importing a movie from a DVD.
If you do, that will give your video options just enough complexity, apparently, to cause imovie to give you a choice;  the left navigation should show that importation event along side of your iphoto movies. This happened to me at least. As soon as I imported from other sources, it no longer kept my ENTIRE iphoto library as the default. In reading what I just wrote, I'm now confused: I'm pretty sure that I put my DVD video through iPhoto first, so, I'm not sure exactly what I did in imovie to make the importation event unique, but in any case, once I did that, I wound up seeing a directory structure where my iphotos videos were no longer the default selected.

Of course, in order to use any of those videos, I now have to click on iPhoto movies in which case I'm back to waiting for the all to load, which still takes a long time.


How does one start a bash command that doesn't close on Terminal quit? I want to run a command, and not have it quit when Terminal closes.

For instance, if I run top & ; disown, top quits when I quit Terminal. I want to keep top alive.

I know this is possible since the command open can do this. (For example, open -e opens up TextEdit, and when you quit out of Terminal, TextEdit stays open.)

Thanks in advance.

Use screen:

To start a session and a process within run screen command (e.g. screen top). Detach from the session with ctrlActrlD.

Now you can close the Terminal session window or quit Terminal at all and the process started previously is still running.

After (re-)starting Terminal you can get a list of all detached sessions with screen -list.  Use the pid to reattach to a session: screen -R [pid]. To stop the reattached session's process use the common commands (e.g. ctrlC for top) and exit to stop the session.

If you want to start a process in a new immediately detached session use:
screen -d -m command (e.g. screen -d -m top). This will create a new screen session while you get a new prompt in your currently open shell session.

Please check man screen for a lengthy description, key bindings and customizations.

Some programs are launched as a child process of the Terminal window, so closing it will close the program. In that case, launch such programs on a separate process accordingly:

Enter the full path to the executable on the command line (/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/safari)
Use the open command and the appropriate flag, such as -a for app (open -a Safari), which launches applications in a separate process (pid). Once running, you can simply close the Terminal window and the application will remain open, as opposed to using direct executable execution by whatever means you are now using.
The “osascript” command, which is OS X’s Terminal command for running “open scripting architecture” scripts like AppleScript (osascript -e 'open app "Safari"').

All three have a separate means of quitting the processes, but which are similar to each their respective means for starting them.

Keep in mind that these are not the only three, but rather the most arcane commands available to you. I supply them because I reason that anyone running commands in the terminal is already familiar with each and every stock command available in every standard UNIX/Linux/FreeBSD distribution, and readily knows how to use the relevant ones to spawn, kill, suspend, fork, resume, join and detach threads and processes—those being FreeBSD's sole reason for existence as the operating system installed on the machines of the world's most profitable company.

Anyway, one last thing: only the current user can run processes using the above commands; launch processes with these commands under a different user, you must enable the super user account (su), and then prefix each command with sudo.


Will there be a USB-C to thunderbolt 2 adaptor? I only need data transfer to be higher then USB 3.0 Right now USB C ports are just arriving in laptops and I unfortunately dedicated to go with a cheaper laptop (pc) but with thunderbolt-2.

The thing I don't like about thunderbolt 2 products is the premium price you pay for the Lacie external drives with thunderbolt2. I hope that in the future USB-C devices will come out that will be a bit cheaper as the PC world and mac are seemingly getting 1 standard thunderbolt3 and USB-C.

Long story short will the thunderbolt 2 connection be of ANY use to me in the future world of USB-C on my windows laptop in regards to my normal USB3.0 ports? If yes then what applications of USB-C will it work with?

The only application I really care about is if I could connect an external HD sold with the new USB-C to my Thunderbolt2 via an adapter.

I am thinking I will only get a benefit from thunderbolt 3 devices that are labeled as such to get an adapter to thunderbolt 2 ports for me to get a speed gain compared to USB3.0.

In short the whole idea behind these questions is to have a fast connection between disks and laptop as I am working on big files in Photoshop and TB's of photo's and film ect. Even if USB 3.0 is "fast enough" I would still like to have the Thunderbolt 2 speeds rather then the USB 3.0 speeds.

If it is compatible will the theoretical and effective speed of a USB-C to Thunderbolt2 connection surpass the USB 3.0 max speed?

In specific. Thunderbolt can carry USB but USB cannot carry thunderbolt.

In general, as long as your Mac has any Thunderbolt connector, it is highly likely you will be advantaged to connect over thunderbolt instead of using USB. For my money even Thunderbolt 1 is superior in many ways to the best USB 3 chipsets we have today. Now - the above statement is going to be obsolete soon since the newest Thunderbolt 3 chipsets and USB Alternate Mode Functionality mean that USB can be other protocols and TB3 looks to be an awesome step forward for simplifying the need for adapters that you would need on Thunderbolt 2 to get USB 3.0 connectivity today.

What Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 cables/adapters exist for OS X and Mac hardware?

this entire question is backwards... the old connection CANNOT be adapted to by a new one. You can't get an adapter to use USB-C drives on USB or Thunderbolt. You MAY be able to use Thunderbolt 2 on USB-C. USB-C is a faster connection, so you won't be able to shove it into a smaller pipe.


Bluetooth peripherals randomly disconnecting under Mavericks I've scoured the internet to try to find a solution to this bizarre problem (similar problems here and here and here), but have unfortunately failed so far. I'm running OS X 10.9.1 on an early-2013 retina MBP, and my Magic Mouse and Bluetooth Keyboard disconnect every 1–3 hours, causing the following kernel errors:

1/26/14 12:09:23.000 AM kernel[0]: [BNBMouseDevice][waitForData][7c-6d-62-f4-b0-ee] Timeout waiting for data
1/26/14 12:09:23.000 AM kernel[0]: [BNBMouseDevice::getExtendedReport][80.14] ERROR: [BNBMouseDevice] getReport returned error e00002d6 for reportID 0x0030
1/26/14 12:09:23.000 AM kernel[0]: [BNBMouseDevice][getBatteryState] Couldn't get battery state from device
1/26/14 12:09:26.000 AM kernel[0]: [IOBluetoothHCIController][handleACLPacketTimeout] -- Disconnecting due to device not responding (ACL Packet timed out) for connection handle 0xd
1/26/14 12:09:26.308 AM loginwindow[59]: Preferred Localizations total: 1 contents (en)
1/26/14 12:09:29.000 AM kernel[0]: [IOBluetoothHCIController][handleACLPacketTimeout] -- Disconnecting due to device not responding (ACL Packet timed out) for connection handle 0xc
1/26/14 12:09:29.000 AM kernel[0]: [BNBMouseDevice][waitForData][7c-6d-62-f4-b0-ee] Became inactive waiting for data
1/26/14 12:09:29.000 AM kernel[0]: [BNBMouseDevice::getExtendedReport][80.14] ERROR: [BNBMouseDevice] getReport returned error e00002d7 for reportID 0x0060
1/26/14 12:09:29.000 AM kernel[0]: [BNBMouseDevice::createUsedVoltagesDict][80.14] ERROR: Unable to get calibrated battery thresholds report for product ID 781
1/26/14 12:09:29.000 AM kernel[0]: [BNBMouseDevice] notice: _outstandingIO > 0 but isInactive() returned TRUE...
1/26/14 12:09:29.000 AM kernel[0]: [AppleMultitouchDevice::willTerminate] entered
1/26/14 12:09:29.000 AM kernel[0]: [AppleMultitouchDevice::stop] entered

Additionally, the Bluetooth panel in System Preferences freezes up completely and shows glitchy information:

The only way to get the mouse and keyboard to reconnect (and the only way to get the Bluetooth panel to work again) is to:

Turn all the peripherals off
Put the computer to sleep (without closing the lid)
Wait for 60–90 seconds for the computer to magically wake itself back up
Turn on the peripherals. All is well.

If I put the computer to sleep with Bluetooth working, it will stay asleep. If I put it to sleep after the peripherals disconnect, it will wake up automatically after a while.

I have no idea what is triggering these disconnects. They don't happen at the same intervals (sometimes it happens after an hour, sometimes four), but they always happen. Since upgrading to Mavericks I've had to do this whole put-the-computer-to-sleep thing several times a day. This did not happen under Mountain Lion.

I've tried the following things, without success:

Reset SMC
Reset PRAM
Deleted ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.bluetooth.* and /Library/Preferences/com.apple.bluethooth and anything else related to Bluetooth
Reinstalled Mavericks
Had the physical Bluetooth controller replaced by Apple (just got the computer back yesterday)

Despite all this, the problem persists. I still have to put the computer to sleep 4–5 times a day to get the mouse and keyboard working again. Seemingly nobody knows how to fix it—it has even stumped Apple.

Does anyone know what's going on?

I was able to overcome the problem with this quick fix. So whenever you loose bluetooth connectivity just run the following commands in the terminal

$ sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport
$ sudo kextload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport

You will regain connectivity.

My it helps you to reset the SMC (System Management Controller), as the SMC is responsible for all components that are associated with power supply and, according to an Apple Store Genuis, a SMC reset would reset the bluetooth chip as well.
(Here is the link to Apples Support Page with a tutorial to reset the SMC)


Sync Dailymotion videos I have Dailymotion app in my iPhone 4s iOS 8.3! Plz tell me how to sync Dailymotion videos so that I can watch them offline?

Dailymotion does not have a provision to download the videos for off line viewing.

There is no setting in the Sync to do that.

You will need a another 3d party app to download the videos so you can watch them off line.

There is a number off applications to download videos, example https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/video-downloader-download/id733735644?mt=8

or this one http://mediatapdownloader.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-to-download-videos-from-dailymotion.html

and so on....Search for "Dailymotion" "Video download" in Apple Store.

Try this App on AppStore that lets you cache dailymotion videos : CarbonPlay https://itunes.apple.com/app/carbonplay-multi-media-gadget/id1041534134?mt=8


Why doesn't anything happen when I connect my Nexus S to a MacBook Pro 2010 using a USB cable? I've tried to connect a Nexus S to a MBP 2010 via USB. After connection, the Mac does not respond.

Anybody know why? I have tried it with a powered USB hub and get the same result: No responses for the USB storage.

Fire up system profiler on your mac. This can be refreshed to show all USB devices connected - even if there is a driver issue, at least you'll know if the cable and physical connection are good.

You may need to download software provided by Samsung to connect your device by USB.


What does "Other" represent when looking at iTunes representation of free space on an iDevice? In the graphical space representation of my iPhone, the Other category takes a pretty big chunk.

How can I find out what is in the Other category?  If it's text messages from the last 4 years that I've owned iPhones, how can I browse them?

What is the Other space

On an iPhone, the Other storage can be classified as one of the following:

    Browser cache
    Mail cache
    Mail messages
    Mail attachments
    Safari's Reading List
    iTunes Backups
    Effects of jailbreaking your iDevice
    Game data
    Saved data files
    Call history
    Notes
    Media
    Voice memos

How to Remove It

Just follow these steps (Check the articles listed below for more information):

Delete the browser cache (and Reading Lists in Safari).
Delete and re-add your mail account.
Remove unimportant text messages.

This will allow you to remove the majority of the extra "stuff" that clogs your space. PhoneClean, referenced below, is a great tool that will do it all for you, so if you just want to remove the most amount of space in the least amount of time, just use that.

Links and Resources

http://appducate.com/2013/01/reclaim-other-storage-space-on-ipad-iphone-and-ipod/
http://www.imobie.com/support/what-is-the-other-on-my-iphone.htm
http://www.cultofmac.com/133183/how-do-i-get-rid-of-the-other-data-stored-on-my-ipad-or-iphone-ask-macrx/

PhoneClean is some freeware that frees up space by removing hidden files. I can't vouch for its reliability, but I've heard some good things about it, so check it out.

"Other" is data on your phone that is not apps, ibooks, photos, music or videos. This means operating system settings and data, Safari cache, Siri cache, downloaded maps, reminders, notes, stocks, weather data, email, texts, imessages, and data for all of the apps on your phone. 1 GB is normal for Other. It can be much larger if you have a lot of apps or have apps that use a lot of data, such as Facebook.

If you want to have a small Other don't install any apps, don't use email, don't save texts, don't use maps...but then why would you have an iPhone in the first place? Other is not a problem; it is what the phone is for.

You can use 3rd party apps like CleanMyPhone, PhoneClean to remove the data from your device

Resources: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23825850#23825850


Is there a backquote on the iPhone keyboard? Is there a backquote (backtick `) on the iPhone keyboard, and if so, where is it?

When I'm writing a post on a site in the SE family (especially SO), I want to use the backquote for inline code blocks. Under the single quote key, I've found two curly/angled quotes, but those (’ and ‘) don't seem to do the trick...

The backtick/backquote was added to the iOS keyboard in 4.1. You need to switch to the numbers keypad and then press & hold apostrophe to access it. Once the variations show up - slide your finger without removing it from the screen. Remove your finger when it's over the correct ` key.

I find that the back quote or grave quote is only available if I use the iPad in a vertical orientation.  The alternative apostrophe symbols do not appear when the device is help in landscape orientation.


How can I separate mailboxes completely in Mavericks's Mail application? How can I separate mailboxes completely in Mavericks's Mail application?

I don't want any of this integrated inbox/folders with the same name feature. I just want clean/separated mailboxes with their folder structures. Its nice for people who have few accounts and small number of mails. It is not a "smart feature" when you get 135,000 messages of inbox/sent/archive folders from 18 different boxes mixed in 3 folders.

Not sure if you still have this problem, but this confused me too.

I have been using Sparrow during Mavericks. After upgrade to Yosemite I decide to give the native mail.app a try.

It looks good, but I was confused that it seem when adding multiple email accounts, it will show the structures, like folders, labels, etc in separate, but has a together inbox, which I dislike.

I believe Apple shouldn't do something this stupid (While sometimes they did...), but anyway I checked everything in the preferences but can't find a clue.

Finally, I found the way they do it....

When you adding multiple account, You still get the separate inbox and sent box and junk boxes for each account.

It is just been grouped together...looking for the small arrow at the left most of Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Junk, Trash and Archive, after expanding them, you will find your account. And you can browser them separately.

There is a little arrow pointing towards inbox just on the left of where it says inbox. Click the arrow and it will show each email seperated below


Can I create symbolic links in OS X which also work in Windows/Linux and vice versa? I'm synchronizing a folder structure between my MacBook (OS X 10.6) and a PC with Windows XP (soon Linux or Windows 7).

My problem is that Windows shortcuts or OS X aliases seem to be unusable on the other system, so those symbolic links can not be synchronized with the other machine.

Is there a common format for symbolic links which works on all 3 operating systems (Windows, OS X, Linux)?
Can I convert the existing aliases and Windows shortcuts to this format?

sync application may be the good choice sometime, I recommend you
BitTorrent Sync, is An Application to keep designated folder content same on  more devices. Changes should be propagated to all the device that keep the folder synchronized.