Add keyboard shortcut to print custom characters I would like to map the Alt (Option) + (a/u/o/s) to ä,ü,ö,ß

Is there a native way, or a software for it?

There's the default long press functionality, where you long press a letter (~2sec) and it gives you a tooltip with alternatives that are... I guess similar to that letter. You can then press the associated numbers to replace the original letter.

You can also navigate the list with:

TAB and Shift + TAB
and
← and →
Pressing Enter will replace the original letter.
Pressing Esc will cancel

Example where I long pressed s

Example where I long pressed o:

I think it doesn't give me the ö, because that already exists in my keyboard layout as its own key.

You can adjust the delay for when the tooltip shows up here:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard (first tab) > Delay Until Repeat

When Delay Until Repeat is set to Short, the delay is maybe half a second, if I had to guess.

I believe you should be able to do that under System Preferences/Keyboard and look for customizations.  There is a representation of what each modifier key does wrt the rest of the keys.
In any case, search in this site for "umlaut" and see if that helps.

Yeh, there it is...
Mountain Lion - Umlauts with english keyboard layout

H


OpenToonz: How to install ffmpeg for mac osx el capitan when only static ffmpeg builds for macOS 64-bit are available at ffmpeg.org? I'm trying to install ffmpeg on my mac OS X El Capitan version 10.11.6 Mid 2009 so I can use it's libraries: ffmpeg.exe, ffplay.exe, ffprobe.exe and be able to import/export mp4 and gif files to OpenToonz animation software.
tutorials online including: https://opentoonz.readthedocs.io/en/latest/using_ffmpeg_with_opentoonz.html?highlight=Ffmpeg
, the official guide from opentoonz,
go the ffmpeg.org and download a pre-compiled package: 'static and shared builds for macOS 64-bit.
However, for me, only 'static builds for macOS 64-bit' shows up which allows me to download a .7z file or a ffmpeg.exe file but not the other libraries (ffplay.exe, ffprobe.exe).
How can I use ffmpeg with OpenToonz on macOSX el capitan?
If I can't install ffmpeg and it's libaries from a static package, how can I install it from source so I can use it with OpenToonz?
I appreciate any help.
ty.

At least one user found another answer hard to follow. So did I. After a bit of a struggle, I got OpenToonz 1.4 working with ffmpeg on a Mac running macOS Catalina (10.15). I installed the "static files." I did not build from source. Here is what I did:

download ffmpeg, ffprobe, ffplay and ffserver from the download page. The download links are displayed in large green buttons and there are several on the page.

Extract these compressed files to your system.

copy the executables to /Applications/OpenToonz/OpenToonz_stuff/plugins

control(right)-click > open each of the executables you moved into the plugins folder. This is necessary due to macOS security. The programs will run in the terminal and then report an error. That is OK.

open System Preferences > Security & Privacy. Go to the Privacy tab. Enable OpenToonz under the Accessibility category.

start OpenToonz. Open Preferences > Import/Export. Set the file path for ffmpeg: /Applications/OpenToonz/OpenToonz_stuff/plugins

Restart OpenToonz. It should be working now (at least it was for me).
It was not clear to me which of the 4 executables OpenToonz actually needs so I installed them all. It would be better to find out which ones are actually needed and install only those. Maybe at some time in the future I'll do that.

First step I guess is to copy the link of brew.sh of their page into your terminal.
Whatever you do until you get to your final result, ALWAYS have your setting - security panel open, because for any reason, your security settings will block all apps coming from elsewhere than App Store... you see, basically everything... :)
Then you go to the ffmpeg.org page, then select the apple Icon. then click on the link below it. it brings you to a  page where you will have to click on the (showed on the same page, just under different names, look carefully because it seems that you have missed it) ffmpeg, play, and ffprobe (zip link) basically you will download 3 exec files.
Once you have dowloaded them, go to Application on your Finder and click on opentoonz stuff to create a folder (simple) called ffmpeg.
Then move the 3 exec files to it, and right click on them and open it with Terminal.
Here comes the issue, you have to open your security panel to allow the file (coming from elsewhere than App Store) with your approval then, you click open, and the terminal will do the work for you. You repeat this for the play and probe exec file and you should be set for the Opentoonz creativity to be exported into gif, mp4, etc...


Chrome address bar disappeared after update I have a weird issue with Chrome (69.0.3497.92 (Official Build) (64-bit)). When I go into fullscreen mode with CMD + CTRL + F the addressbar disappears.

It started after the update from the old known theme to the 'new' flat Chrome version. I cannot browse to URLs in fullscreen mode anymore.

To make it completely clear. It is not with the video based fullscreen etc. it concerns every page.

Normal view:

Fullscreen view:

Anyone know how to fix this?

Open Google Chrome on your Mac
Move cursor to top of screen where OS Toolbar is located and click VIEW
In the drop-down menu that appears, click "Always show toolbar in full screen"

Force quit, reopen and restores defaults


Can i use my ipad adapter cube and a usb cord together without any damage to the phone? Is using the two together going to damage my phone in any way?

The short answer is that any USB charger is safe with any USB device; a smaller (iPhone) charger may not charge a bigger (iPad) device. You can also connect your device via a USB extension cable.

The longer version is that Apple's USB chargers (whether sold with the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Apple Watch, or new MacBook) are all essentially the same, the difference is how much electrical current they can supply. The chargers are all regulated (meaning they incorporate circuitry to maintain a constant voltage), which means the connected device will simply draw as much current as it needs and no more.

This means you can easily charge a lesser device with a greater charger; a MacBook (the new USB-C MacBook, not the older MagSafe models!) charger will quite safely charge an iPhone, as will an iPad charger. (You will, of course, need a USB-C to USB adapter, as the charger has a USB-C port and Apple doesn't yet make USB-C lightning cables.)

You can also charge a greater device with a lesser charger, though charging will be slower. An iPad will work with an iPhone charger, but will charge much more slowly, or not at all. An iPhone charger will not damage the new MacBook, but it also probably won't supply enough power for it to run, let alone charge.

You can also connect the device to the charger with a USB extension cable (though not a hub!), but I'd recommend not exceeding 5 m total cable length (from the USB port on the charger, to the port on your device).

Other USB devices can also be powered or charged with an Apple USB charger; I often use my iPhone chargers to charge my 3G WiFi modem, charge Bluetooth headphones, and run a Raspberry Pi.

The short answer is: It's debatable. It will not immediately damage your phone, but may decrease long term battery life.

Apple has not officially commented on this, (to my knowledge) however it is commonly accepted that routinely charging a battery with higher amperage than it's designed to take will degrade performance over time. Yet, even that is debated.

How much performance in what time period is not officially known, as consumer smart phones are replaced well before the true limits of the hardware.

Furthermore, anecdotal evidence found online is often along the lines of "I used my iPad charger for 11 months before replacing my iPhone with a newer model" don't really answer the question, although they may for individual purposes.

Here is an article explaining battery basics:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/how-to/a3224/can-you-use-the-same-power-adapter-for-iphone-and-ipad-10283982/

Here is a Reddit discussion with some great information:
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1uh2zj/is_it_safe_to_use_an_ipad_charger_to_charge/


Stop iTunes from opening when a device is plugged in? Since re-installing OS X (10.8), every time I plug in an iOS device iTunes opens up and shows an error message:

  iTunes could not connect to the iPhone "..." because it is locked with a passcode. You must enter your passcode on the iPhone before it can be used with iTunes.

I plug in various devices all the time, just so I can charge them. I do not want them connected to iTunes, I definitely don't want iTunes storing a copy of the device's passcode (or however that works) on my mac, and some of the devices plugged in aren't even mine.

How can I stop this from happening? It doesn't happen when I'm booted into 10.7 on the same mac, with the same iOS devices.

I already have "Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically" enabled in Preferences.

EDIT: this particular device also has "Open iTunes when this device is connected" turned off, so it seems to ignore that setting.

Under System Preferences → Users → [you] → Login Items → select iTunesHelper, then click the minus sign and log out/into your Mac.

No devices will cause iTunes to launch (that's the whole purpose of iTunesHelper).

The solution I found that worked since nothing else did for me was to rename the iTuneshelper.exe file before I plug in my iPhone. I use Explorer to get photos off my phone and this is the only way I could do that after I installed iTunes. Apple needs to really work on improving iTunes. I don't find it user friendly at all.


Why am I being prompted for my password for updates in the iOS App Store? Recently the iOS App Store has started to prompt me for my password for updating apps in the App Store. Is there something I can do to change this back to the way it was?

I think the restriction settings may be the cause. Even though I have a PIN on the home screen, it prompts me for a password when I update.

I went to Settings > General > Restrictions > Require Passwords and set it to 15 minutes. I'm not sure how it got changed to this, possibly an update?


How accurate are iOS apps that measure heart rate? There are apps like Instant Heart Rate and Cardiograph which claim to be able to measure heart rate by reading color changes on arterial pressure change. They generally require you to place your finger over the flash led and camera.

From my tests the values don't quite match rates measured traditionally (by feeling arterial pressure changes, counting them over 10 seconds and multiplying by 6) but I'm not a physician so I might be measuring incorrectly.

So, are these apps more precise than I can be or is it the other way around?

Very interesting question! I wasn't even aware that these kind of apps exist. In order to answer your question, I decided to put one of them to the test against a chest strap heart rate monitor. (I was using a Garmin brand chest monitor similar to this one.) I was using both heart rate monitors at the same time when I performed my tests and compared their values.

I tried out Instant Heart Rate Monitor, and it turns out that it is remarkably accurate... when it worked.

The main problem was that it only worked about 1 in 30 times. Every other time it would say it could either not detect a finger, or it started detecting the pulse, but then never finished the process.

When it did work, though, the results were surprisingly similar to my other heart rate monitor. After performing 5 (non-scientific) tests, it was off by an average of only 1.26%. Had it worked more consistently, I would have tried it out more than 5 times.

A few notes:

While it is beeping and gathering info, the heart rate it shows is usually way off from your actual heart rate. Sometimes it's almost exactly half your real heart rate.
The final heart rate it outputs is usually very close to your actual heart rate.

Therefore, you should only trust the last heart rate value it outputs (i.e. the average).

There is no way any built in camera in mobile devices has the accuracy to detect the kind of changes these applications claims to use to detect pulse from your skin. I don´t need to hear all of you claiming it´s +-2, 3 or 5 bpm precise, to put it simply: cameras aren´t that evolved, it´s a hardware limitation!

You can check it just by pointing the camera to any inanimate object to see what the app says it´s heart beat is...

Of course it´s not magic, this app is just playing dices in the inside while painting funny stuff on screen.


Analogue military time watchface Is it possible to get an analogue military time watchface on the Apple iWatch 2?

Like this...

Not at the moment. You can send feedback to Apple about this: https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html.


Is there an easy way to export all movies from iPhoto into iMovie Is there some easy way to just move all of my movies out of iphoto and into imovie?

First steps, in iPhoto:

Create an Smart Album (⌥+⌘+N). Name it Movies, or whatever you like.
Under "Match the following condition:", set the first drop-down to Filename, then next to "Contains", type "mov" in the box (without the quotes). This assumes all of your movies were created with an iDevice. If you have Vine videos you'd like to move as well, you'll need to set the first drop-down to "Any Text", then next to "Contains", type "H.264" in the box (without the quotes).
Click OK. This should show you all of your movies.
The easiest thing to do from here is create a folder on your Desktop (⌘+⇧+N), name it Movies, and open it.
Then back in iPhoto, press ⌘+A to select all of your movies, and drag-and-drop them into the folder you just created on your desktop. This step may take a few minutes.

Once it's done, go into iMovie:

Go to File > Import > Movies.
Click on Desktop in the sidebar, then find the folder you created above. Double-click on it.
Press ⌘+A to select all contents.
Select "Create New Event" and enter a name. (You can sort them into separate events later.)
Click Import. This process may take some time.

Once everything is imported, go to Window > Show Event Library. All of your movies are going to be grouped into the event name you entered above. The following steps are optional, if you want to sort by events:

Go to File > New Event and create each event that you want to.
Right-click on a movie, choose "Select Entire Clip", and move your cursor to an edge until the cursor changes to the hand.
Drag-and-drop it into the event that you want. iMovie will prompt you to confirm and then move it.

At this point, you can remove them from iPhoto:

Go back to the iPhoto album you created that shows all of your movies.
Press ⌘+A to select all.
Press ⌘+⌥+delete to move them to the iPhoto trash.

In case you don't realise, you can just drag the movies from iPhoto into iMovie.


MacBook Pro 11,3 with dual Dell P2715Q 27" Monitors I have two Dell P2715Q 27" external monitors I want to connect to my 15" MacBook Pro 11,3 with OSX 10.10.2 ordered around September 2014. I've tried connecting it as follows:

note: tb = thunderbolt, dp = displayport, mdp = mini displayport

First try

tb 1 -> Dell P2715Q #1 dp in -> Dell P2715Q #1 dp out -> Dell P2715Q #2 mdp in

In this case the two Dell screens will only mirror, and OS X does not seem to recognize that there are actually two displays attached.

Second try

thunderbolt 1 -> Dell P2715Q #1 displayport in
thunderbolt 2 -> Dell P2715Q #2 displayport in

In this case one screen will go on, but the other remains black and says there is no signal.

side note

I also have an older 1920x1200 Dell display I want to use via HDMI for a total of 3 external displays, but I need to get an HDMI cable plus the first two screens working first.

from monitor menu (the buttons) change the MST setting to Primary and Secondary accordingly


iPhone 3GS no sim error I got an iPhone 3G from a friend and it is showing "no sim card" and I know the sim card is good and it won't let me do anything but phone start up. Can anyone help please?

Restore that iPhone. If the problem persists: take it to a repair shop. It is probably a hardware problem. I had the same problem myself.


How to go to alias from terminal? By alias, I mean the folder shortcut created when you right-click a folder in Finder and select "Make Alias". I can traverse symbolic links in Terminal with cd, but it doesn't work on aliases: bash: cd: example-alias: Not a directory. Is it possible to change directory to an alias's destination in Terminal?

To enable cd'ing into a folder alias I've found the following at Mac OS X Hints.

Compile the source code below with the following command:

gcc -o getTrueName -framework Carbon getTrueName.c

This will create the ‘getTrueName’ executable in the same directory as the source. You can add it to your PATH, or just copy it directly to /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin so it’s easy to access.

C source code for getTrueName (copy the text and save the file as getTrueName.c in your home directory):

// getTrueName.c
//
// DESCRIPTION
//   Resolve HFS and HFS+ aliased files (and soft links), and return the
//   name of the "Original" or actual file. Directories have a "/"
//   appended. The error number returned is 255 on error, 0 if the file
//   was an alias, or 1 if the argument given was not an alias
//
// BUILD INSTRUCTIONS
//   gcc-3.3 -o getTrueName -framework Carbon getTrueName.c
//
//     Note: gcc version 4 reports the following warning
//     warning: pointer targets in passing argument 1 of 'FSPathMakeRef'
//       differ in signedness
//
// COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
//   Copyright 2005 by Thos Davis. All rights reserved.
//   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
//   modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
//   published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
//   License, or (at your option) any later version.
//
//   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
//   WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
//   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
//   General Public License for more details.
//
//   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
//   License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
//   Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
//   MA 02111-1307 USA

#include <Carbon/Carbon.h>
#define MAX_PATH_SIZE 1024
#define CHECK(rc,check_value) if ((check_value) != noErr) exit((rc))

int main ( int argc, char * argv[] )
  {
    FSRef               fsRef;
    Boolean             targetIsFolder;
    Boolean             wasAliased;
    UInt8               targetPath[MAX_PATH_SIZE+1];
    char *              marker;

    // if there are no arguments, go away
    if (argc < 2 ) exit(255);

    CHECK( 255,
      FSPathMakeRef( argv[1], &fsRef, NULL ));

    CHECK( 1,
      FSResolveAliasFile( &fsRef, TRUE, &targetIsFolder, &wasAliased));

    CHECK( 255,
      FSRefMakePath( &fsRef, targetPath, MAX_PATH_SIZE));

    marker = targetIsFolder ? "/" : "" ;
    printf( "%s%s\n", targetPath, marker );

    exit( 1 - wasAliased );
  }

Include the following in ~/.bash_profile or create a new file ~/.bash_profile with the following content:

function cd {
  if [ ${#1} == 0 ]; then
    builtin cd
  elif [ -d "${1}" ]; then
    builtin cd "${1}"
  elif [[ -f "${1}" || -L "${1}" ]]; then
    path=$(getTrueName "$1")
    builtin cd "$path"
  else
    builtin cd "${1}"
  fi
}

You probably have to restart Terminal to load your modified .bash_profile.

Tested in Yosemite 10.10.2 & gcc 4.2 (Xcode 6.2) and it works.

A similar approach is available at superuser.com

Like most any operating system (besides Windows), OS X supports Bash scripts. First create the file on your Desktop (or whatever location you'd like):
touch ~/Desktop/PlexConnect.sh
Next, set the permissions of the file such that it is executable:
chmod +x ~/Desktop/PlexConnect.sh
You can then edit the contents of the script with your text editor of choice, just make sure it begins with the following line so that the system knows to run it using the shell (Bash):
!/bin/bash
The file can then be double-clicked, launching Terminal and executing it.
A more elegant solution for this, however, may be to create an AppleScript application which runs the command for you. Open the "Script Editor" application and paste in the following:
do shell script "/Applications/PlexConnect-master/PlexConnect.py" with administrator privileges
Save this as an "Application," naming it whatever you'd like. When opening it, it will give you OS X's standard password prompt, execute the script, then close itself.


Can I use my iPad as a Virtual CD Deck Is there is an app for iPad that will emulate basic CD deck functionality using iTunes tracks? All the DJ software I've seen (or bought) seems to include mixer/deck/additional features I don't require (I have a vinyl-based DJ set-up and just need an additional player for music I only have digital copies of).

To clarify - I'm looking for a software version of something like this. I just need basic cue/jog controls and a speed control.

Update: please see this video for an overview of the sort of thing I'm looking for (NB. basic bpm adjustment and cueing controls is really all I need - hotstarts and looping would be great but I can live without them.)

Let me see if I understand your concerns. You want an app with a single deck interface that takes up the entire screen, but all the DJ apps out there all use a split-screen dual-deck interface with no single deck option. Is that right?

How about this? It's the only DJ app with a single deck interface I can find so far. Got cue points, loops, effect, the whole shebang.

Mixmo-DJ/Pro

Homepage: http://www.mixmodj.com/

App Store links:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mixmo-dj/id483351955
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mixmo-dj-pro/id461366285

Youtube Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGeyVmkmdTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvhHybAfJ9M

Here's a review from a trust source, Digital DJ Tips:

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/12/review-mixmodj-for-ipad-iphone-ipod-touch/

IK Multimedia's DJ Rig also has a single deck interface but it's for iPhone, so it might not look great on iPad but it still does what you want..

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/djrigiphone/
http://itunes.apple.com/app/dj-rig/id478831717
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3QhZuHbAUY

How about DJ for iPad,  it's not cd decks but its the same principle??


Is it possible to charge my MacBook Air from a powerbank? I recently bought a powerbank that has two USB outlets. It's great for charging my phone and iPad. Is it possible to charge my MacBook Air from the powerbank? If it's not possible to do this "out of the box", would it be possible to build or buy something that would enable me to do this?

Yes, The answer is positive. The power bank capable to charge a laptop needs to supply not only the USB standard charging port but also (or only) a DC output port, or a build-in power inverter with an AC outlet.

Here i collect some power bank that can charge laptop:

1.Anker® Astro Pro2 Multi-Voltage Portable Charger – 20000mAh
Multi-Voltage 5V 12V 16V 19V for iPad Air, Mini, iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Note, HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, Toshiba Netbooks

2.RAVPower® Xtreme 3-Port Portable External Battery Charger with Multi-Voltage 23000mAh
Multi-Voltage 9V/12V/16V/19V/20V – for Apple Macbook, UltraBook, Digital Cameras, Surface Tablets,Asus Tablets and more

3.Poweradd™ Pilot Pro Monster Capacity Multi-Voltage Portable Charger – 32000mAh
Multi-Voltage 5V 9V 12V 16V 19V 20V for Tablet PC, Netbooks, Notebooks, Laptops, Smart Phones

4.BiXPower 153 Wh (42500mAh) Super High Capacity 12V & 19V External Rechargeable Battery Pack – BiXPower BP160
Made with high quality Panasonic Li-ion battery cells. Compact size can easily fit into a laptop/notebook carry bag

5.Energizer XP18000AB Universal Power Adapter with External Battery for Tablets/Laptops/Netbooks/Smartphones

Energizer XP18000AB Universal Power Adapter with External Battery for Tablets/Laptops/Netbooks/Smartphones

6.Qi-Infinity™ Powergrid External Battery Pack/High Capacity Power Bank charger – 34200mAh
For Laptops, Notebooks, Netbooks, Tablets and Smart Phones

7.Lizone® Extra Pro Super Capacity Portable External Battery Charger 40000mAh
For Apple Books, HP, IBM Lenovo, Tablets, Smartphones and more

8.Intocircuit® Power Castle PC26000 External Battery Pack/High Capacity Power Bank charger – 26000mAh
12 Connectors for Laptops, 10 Connectors for Phones and Tablets, AC Adapter Included

There are power banks available with various plug in connectors for laptops, but they cost around 15,000. I have seen one on ebay india, and the ad says that they’ve even sold 29 units. These are not marketed by laptop manufacturers so I am not sure what your laptop warranty status will be if you purchase one of these banks and use it charge your laptop. Most laptops charges through its adapter only. Powerbanks on the other hand have only usb 2 output interface. Replacing laptop batteries with Extra cell batteries available in the market can help. One desi jugaad is using a UPS to charge a lappy but it wont make it handy and portable.

No. A powerbank is a battery device designed to charge small devices through the USB ports, but not provide the wattage necessary for charging a MacBook's battery.


Unwanted hollow star / album ratings foul up a Smart Playlist of zero-star songs The SXSW Showcasing Artist compilations typically include more than one thousand songs. When I add them to iTunes initially, the songs display a blank rating, which is what I want.

The songs are each tagged with the album SXSW YYYY Showcasing Artists (where YYYY is the year of the festival). They appear in coverflow view as more than one thousand distinct one-song albums, which is unwieldy. So, I gather them with a Smart Playlist, select all, open Get Info, set the album, year, sort album, and mark them "Part of a compilation."

Then I start listening to them, and rating them one to five stars. In some cases, I do not need to listen all the way to the end in order to determine a rating, so the "Played" count does not increment. Sometimes the song plays all the way to the end and I can't rate it because I'm too busy. Sometimes a whole bunch of songs play to the end and I never hear them because the headphones were plugged in to the player but not to my ears. The only way I know I have actually heard enough of a song to be able to rate it is that it has a rating.

Then, something happens. I don't know what.

Some of the songs to which I have never listened show a two hollow star rating. I guess that's the Album Rating. What the heck?

I want a Smart Playlist of the songs I have not rated yet, whether or not they have been played, and I do not want to count "Album Rating" as a rating. I want the zero-star songs, and the Album Rating makes the Smart Playlist think there are no zero-star songs.

I would be delighted to remove the Album Rating, but there appears to be no way to do so within the iTunes GUI.

I do not mind writing a program to remove Album Rating from wherever iTunes stores it, and based on Google searches such a tool would be popular. Is iTunes library format documented? Does iTunes generate Album Rating dynamically, so even if I were able to erase it from the disk, it would come back?

Note: the technique "View in Album List, click to the left of the leftmost star" does not always work. See here and here.

You can get rid of album ratings. Select "as album list" from the view menu, then click just to the left of the leftmost star. This will clear the rating, although you may have to try a couple times to hit the right spot, especially if you have 1/2 stars enabled.

Source:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1786573?threadID=1786573

Only songs that are part of an album that was explicitly rated, "solid stars", will show up in a smart playlist based on ratings. To remove unwanted tracks from your playlist that are listed because of album rating do the following:

Load the playlist
Play a song with that is implicitly rated "hollow stars"
Right click on the album graphic at the top of Itunes and select (go to album)
Click to the left of the first star next to the heart in the album area
Now check your playlist and all the songs that were implicity added from that album to your playlist will be removed from the playlist.


How to create desktop shortcut for Chrome profile and run two or more profiles simultaneously? I am new to Mac, and I have my rough time (missing keys, wrong shortcuts and etc). But I don't give up. I am a JS developer with more than 10 years of Windows and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu) experience and I need another Chrome profile accessible on a demand. The easiest way for me is another icon in Dock (and on the desktop).
It is very easy in Windows - one just have to make shortcut and enter command line for chrome which looks like this:
google-chrome --profile-directory=Default

For OS X I found command line is

open -a "Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory=Default

How to make a shortcut in Dock and on Desktop using it?

Please mind the subject (question), it is important for me, that shortcuts has to allow running multiple profiles simultaneously. I didn't stated it first time, because it was obvious for me it will work that way (Linux and Windows just do it).

Since there are several possible answers, I will introduce a more exotic one:

Download and install Platypus
Create a file chromedefault.sh in ~/Documents/scripts/ with the content:

#!/bin/bash
open -a "Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory=Default

Open Platypus with the following settings:

and create a new "app" ChromeDefault.
For a second app with the profile Other use another script chromeother.sh with appropriate changes:

#!/bin/bash
open -a "Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory=Other

and call it ChromeOther.
Put both apps in the /Applications folder and create as many symlinks or aliases as needed.

just use the Automater app. its built into macOS to make the shell script into am app.


Virtual Machine support for DirectX 11 (Windows 10) hosted on OS X does anyone know if there is currently any virtualisation software that supports creating a Windows 10 virtual machine with support to DirectX 11?

From what I have found online, bootcamp supports this, but this wouldn't be a solution for me (it will need you to exit OS X and restart to use windows).

The most popular tools VMWare Fusion (v8) and Parallels (v11) only support up to DirectX 10

Is there any other alternative around that does support DirectX 11 now?

Update: As of November 2016, Parallels v12 still doesn't support DirectX 11 (only 10.1).

Update: Parallels has released v13 in August 2017, and surprise, surprise! DirectX 11 is not supported yet... as expected

Answer: Not likely to happen.

After years of pestering, January 2018 Parallels posted a formal statement and explanation regarding DirectX 11:

http://blog.parallels.com/2017/12/04/directx-and-parallels-desktop-13/

  Why isn’t DirectX 11 supported in Parallels Desktop?

  One of the mandatory DX11 features is called “compute shaders.” The
  name “shaders” usually refers to graphical functions that calculate
  the appropriate color and brightness for an image, but “compute
  shaders” are quite different. Compute shaders help the programmer to
  more easily take full advantage of the many processors on today’s
  graphics cards, primarily by broadening shader capabilities beyond
  pure graphics to more general calculations, which can be done on a
  graphics chip.

  Parallels implements DirectX emulation by translating it to the
  equivalent OpenGL function, since OpenGL is implemented in the macOS®.
  Unfortunately, the version of OpenGL in the macOS does not have
  compute shaders. There is nothing for Parallels Desktop to map DirectX
  shaders to in the OpenGL framework in the macOS.

  The macOS does support another style of compute shaders in the OpenCL
  framework. (Don’t let the similarity in the names “OpenGL” and
  “OpenCL” make you think they’re similar. They aren’t. In fact, they
  are competing “standards.”) Unfortunately, however, OpenCL on Mac
  isn’t as robust and doesn’t cooperate well with OpenGL.

  Besides compute shaders, there are other features missing in OpenGL on
  macOS, which means there are additional “feature parity holes” with
  DirectX. There’s simply not enough functionality to translate DX11 to
  in the functions available in the macOS.

  Apple® started pushing its own Metal API recently, which is universal
  for Mac computers. Only time will tell if Metal will give the
  Parallels Desktop programmers what they need to support DirectX 11.
  Stay tuned, but don’t get your hopes up for any major change in the
  near future....

Support Team says: It's planned to support directx11 in Parallels v12


OSX Calendar not showing Exchange Account So because the mail app from Apple is far from perfect and never showed me the date and time of calendar invites from MS Exchange environments (after the Yosemite update) I was adviced to re-add the exchange account in Preferences -> Internet Accounts.

After doing that, the calendar app just won't show the exchange account anymore. It's right there in the settings, but not in the panel:

Can anyone tell me how I get my exchange calendar back to the calendar app?

Thanks in advance for any help.

PS.: the bug in mail (no date&time for cal invites) wasn't fixed by this btw.

I feel stupid for answering this myself because the "fix" is idiotic.

Remove the exchange account
Restart the mac
add the account back -> everything works.

I hope another answer gets two upvotes if they help someone so they're assigned the bounty I put out on this question.
Thanks for the answers!


How can I make iPhone silent for a specific amount of time? On Android phones, there are apps (not native functionality) to make the phone silent for the next N minutes starting right now. This is different than setting specific times of day like Do Not Disturb does.

The functionality I'm used to takes one of two forms:

An icon you click that then asks "how long should the silence last"
Or, automatically detect that I turned off the sound to zero (via volume rockers or otherwise); and asks the same thing.
However, I'm not dogmatic, if iPhone has some other approach to solve this problem I'm open to exploring it.

Is something like this available on iPhone? (6, OS version 10 if it matters).

I prefer native functionality if it exists. Otherwise, an App store app is OK as long as it's free (as in gratis) doesn't require jailbreaking and works on iPhone 6.

Extra plus if it supports both modes described above (trigger with the icon or with setting volume to zero); as well as supposed 100% silence or vibrate-only mode.

While time-limited muting does exist on Android, it does not on iOS. You can set your phone to silent (by using the mute switch on the side of the phone), but you can't set it to silent for N hours. This feature could come in a future software update (try suggesting it to Apple) but can't come from an app, as iOS apps are forbidden from controlling ringer volume or Do Not Disturb setting.

You can, however, set DND to come on for a specific time period every night, having it automatically turn on at 10pm and turn off at 7am, say (times are customizable). That's in Settings->Do Not Disturb->Scheduled.

Source of information about apps not being able to control ringer volume: my personal knowledge as a published iOS developer and this answer.

"siri, please mute phone calls for the next 3 hours!"


How do you delete apps from Lion's Launchpad? When pressing alt/option in Lion's Launchpad, only some icons get the delete X overlay to remove them.  How do you delete the others?  I've read that control-option-command should do this, but it simply launches the app for me.

Launchpad-Control is what you are looking for my friend. It's a free preference pane app that lets you uncheck what you want to hide. It even backs up for safety :)

Alternatively, you could enter the following into Terminal:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db "DELETE from apps WHERE title='APP_NAME';" && killall Dock

Replace the "APP_NAME" with the name of the app as it's displayed in Launchpad.

To display it in Launchpad again, simply move it from Applications folder and then put it back.

This youtube video shows the simplest and cleanest way to remove individual apps that you did not download from the Mac App Store.

You don't need any external apps. It is very straightforward.


Prevent OS X from seeing a disk previously used for Time Machine as a TM disk I have a slightly flaky old disk which was once used with Time Machine on an old Mac. Since Time Machine is no longer part of my workflow, I'd like to just access this disk like any other HDD. Currently, when I try to delete files I receive the message "The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified."

Edit: I tried using tmutil associatedisk, but I don't see any old versions when I "Enter Time Machine".

There is a command named bypass that should allow you do remove Time Machine related files. This command should precede the rm command.

The path to the bypass command is given below.

/System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass

An example is given below.

/System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass rm -f /path/to/file/name

There also a service written by a third party that allows you do execute the bypass/rm commands from the Finder application. If interested, I could provide a link.


Option to "open with..." on folders in finder Is it possible to add the "Open with..." option to Finder, when you do a secondary click on a folder? I want the same behavior as when I'm secondary clicking on a file.

Edit

I do not want to open the contents of the folder with the application, but simply just the folder.

Try dragging one of your folders over all docked applications. Some of them will show that they can open a folder.

Example:

BBEdit - Allow you to browse the contents of the folder in the sidebar and edit each file inside it.
iTerm - Starts the command line inside the opened folder.

Folders will always open in Finder, an Open With option appears when you right-click on a file.

Is this what you mean or was there a particular program you wanted to interact with an entire folder with?


Best way to get Linux on a Macbook Air I have aquired a macbook air from work after a collegue left.

I have tried, but I can't deal with the locked down nature and lack of customization available in OSX, so I want to get Linux on as soon as possible.

There seems to be two options, dual boot as I have on my other laptops, or running it in a virtual machine.

So will it be fast in a virtual machine? It seems to be reasonably recent, OSX 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion), 8gb Ram, 128GB SSD.  If I use a VM, do I still need to boot in OSX, and essentially have Linux running in "another window"? Do I loose out on anything hardware wise, or can I still access everything as I could from Linux?

Or would I be better with a normal install (this looks to be difficult from teh searching I have done so far). Assuming I partition the disk, will I be able to read / write both partitions from Linux easily?

I will likely use the machine for the usual websurfing, plus a bit of python development. Nothing heavy, and number crunching.

Any recomended tutorials to expalin how to do it along with your answer would be greatly apreciated.

VM

Running in a VM would be the easiest way to go. There are a number of virtualisation apps available on OS X, but I recommend Parallels Desktop. This lets you use OS X and Linux at the same time, but it means that you sacrifice some performance in the VM.

VMs are very simple — select the ISO as the install media, and let Parallels Desktop's automatic install do the rest.

Dual-boot

Alternatively, you can dual-boot using Boot Camp. Begin the Boot Camp process as normal for Windows, but when you reboot after the partition has been created, simply insert your Linux media instead of Windows install media.

The best way is to do a dual boot Mac OS X El Capitan / Linux.

You could read and write Mac OS X partition with ExtFS for Mac OS X 9 to OS X 10.11.


What are the differences between the AT&T and Verizon versions of iPhone 4? Besides working on their respective carriers, what are the similarities and differences between the AT&T iPhone 4 and Verizon iPhone 4?

Due to the differences between CDMA and GSM, the antenna notches have been moved around. There are also 4 now instead of 3, and as a result of adding a notch on the left side of the phone, the mute switch is slightly lower on the Verizon iPhone 4 than the AT&T iPhone 4, which could cause cases made for the AT&T iPhone 4 to not fit the Verizon iPhone 4 properly:

Though this may change in a future version of iOS, right now the Verizon iPhone 4 has a "Personal Hotspot" feature to share the data connection with up to 5 devices. In contrast, the AT&T iPhone 4 supports tethering through USB or Bluetooth only, and only to 1 device:

Finally, because the Verizon iPhone 4 runs on Verizon's CDMA, it does not support simultaneous data and voice, unlike the AT&T iPhone 4 which does over 3G.

Engadget summarized the differences...

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/11/atandt-iphone-4-vs-verizon-iphone-4-whats-changed/


What happens if I plug a 2016 MacBook Pro into itself? The charging cable on the 2016 MacBook Pro is USB-C both ways, allowing me to plug the MacBook into itself. What happens if I do this?

The new MacBook Pros have circuitry in all USB-C ports so that the charger can be plugged into any port.

Plugging a two-way USB-C cable will just make the device think that it's charging as technically there is a power source coming from one of the ports into the other.

It doesn't actually charge anything but the reporting is what's making the battery icon show 'charging'.

It probably will detect it as a short circuit and shut down. I would not do it, if I were you.


Is there any multiple terminal emulator for Mac OS? I love the command line and I would like to see an app like Terminator (for Linux) in my MacOs:

It seems there are ports of that app for Mac available using Fink or Ports. But I found it's a hell to install them... it depends on a lot of things which depends on other things which... etc.

So I've been wondering if there's a MacOS native app like that (free or not)...

iTerm 2 claims to be able to do this.

Edit: I just downloaded it, and it seems to work well enough that I think I'll switch from iTerm 1:

I'm not sure what's going on with you and macports, but I just installed tmux using macports. it took about 30 seconds, and was completely painless.

FWIW, I've subsequently spent enough time with GNU screen that I basically just use it for everything at this point. iTerm is nice if you want a local, mouse-driven multiplexer, but almost everything I do is server-side at this point, and doing it all over one SSH connection is much better anyways.

Use Command + T to open new terminal window


How to determine iOS app usage frequency for iPhone or iPad I have over 200 apps on my iPhone 4 (32GB).  No one needs that many apps, right?  I want to organize my installed apps based on how frequently I use them, and/or how recently I last used them.  I could probably take a qualitative, subjective stab at this myself, but I'd like to have some data, just so I don't toss an app that I may have used, but don't remember using.  Yeah, I know that deleting isn't forever with apps-- but having geeky data makes me feel good.

So far, I have not found a way to do this.  I've seen apps mentioned here on AskDifferent that purport to do such a thing, but have not tried any of them.  For some reason, I seem to recall Googling this several months ago, and running across an article describing a way to glean usage information from the backup file(s) that iTunes creates.  I can no longer find that article-- not sure if it's gone or if I'm just not using the same search terms as before.

Note that my iPhone is not jailbroken, nor do I wish to jail-break it.  I'm not necessarily even interested in an iOS app that gets me this information; I'm simply interested in it any way that it can be had.  If that is via Terminal on the desktop, that's fine.

Knowing this kind of usage information would also be objectively useful if I'm trying to implement some kind of app/folder organizational strategy.  Otherwise, I'm left to my own intuition about how often I use things, which can be false, or in the least, inefficient.

I think I may have found an astoundingly low-tech solution to this problem, and it was right under my nose.

Ever since iOS became "multi-tasking" capable (I say that tongue-in-cheek, as we all know that most apps that get backgrounded aren't still running, they've just had their state saved until used again), the Task Switcher, accessible via a double-press of the Home Button, shows you a more-or-less "use-ordered" list of your apps.  Unless you deliberately open the Task Switcher and kill the apps, they linger in there... I guess forever, or until you reboot the device.

So, if I clear all those out, and then just go about my business using my device for a while, and occasionally look at what apps are in my first 3 or 4 "pages" in the Task Switcher, that gives me a decent idea of which apps I use the most-- or at least can tell me the ones that I've used "most recently".  Those apps that are on the far right "page" of Task Switcher are the least used (or at least the ones that were used "least recently").

EDIT: As of iOS9, the order of applications displayed in the Task Switcher is reversed.  The most recently foregrounded app is on the far right.

I suppose a person could extend this into a true exercise in statistical geekery by noting the order of the apps on a schedule... say every morning or every evening (or more or less often)... over a period of time; a week, a month, whatever.  Then you could compile that into useful info for yourself.

There is an app called Hooked that I use to track app usage to help me stay productive. It tracks app usage.

While battery usage is a helpful general guide, it's very misleading as something like watching videos or playing games uses far more battery life than texting. But you might be using texting far more often than playing a battery-killing game.


Is it possible to highlight text of inbox emails? In Preview.app, I can highlight and annotate text in a PDF file. Can we do the same thing to emails in my inbox in Mail.app?

I have long time collaborate projects and I need to go back to previous emails very frequently — it would be great if I can highlight texts in emails.

Apple Mail doesn't have a way to do this natively.  I can't think of another email client that does what you're describing either.  Here are some ideas and workarounds that might help you accomplish something similar to what you describe; perhaps one of them will suit your needs.

The closest option in Apple Mail is to use flags.  That only gives you the ability to flag a message.  You can't even add a note, let alone highlight the text and annotate it.

You could try a third-party application like MailTags (Mavericks 10.9 support is currently in beta).  It's a paid application with a robust tagging system, as well as the ability to add notes.  This isn't a perfect solution since it doesn't allow you to highlight specific text within the email.  MailTags has a free demo; you might want to download it and see if you can reach a solution that works for you.

Another option would be to try Outlook:Mac.  It has both categories and flags built in.  You can also do things like create a task or a note from a message.  Once you have created a task or a note from a message, you can do things like highlight text, but not annotate it.  It also isn't the original message, but rather a copy of the message.

If you do find something that works for what you want to accomplish, please do share it here.  Being more effective with email is a goal for many people, after all.

I found a solution http://best-mac-tips.com/2013/01/22/highlight-text-apple-mail/. It worked for me.

Regards.


How to Eject All External Partitions Quickly? I have an external disk with two partitions on it that I keep plugged into my MacBook Pro when I'm at my desk. (One is for Time Machine, the other just for extra storage.) Sometimes I need to grab my laptop quickly and take it somewhere, but I have to change to a space where I can see the partitions on the desktop, lasso them, two-finger click, and select Eject. Is there a faster way under Mavericks, or do I have to set up an AppleScript like this one with a keyboard shortcut?

Note: I'm not looking to eject these only when I put my Mac to sleep (as explored here). Sometimes I'm on a screen-sharing telecon and I have to take my Mac away from my desk for a minute, if you know what I mean :-).

The only caveat to "quickly ejecting" disks with any reliability is that they will not eject if there are files in use which reside on them. That said, you can force eject disks, but that would not be ideal if files are, in fact, in use.

Easiest way to instantly eject all disks is by invoking an Applescript (could also create a shell script, but Applescript is more easily turned into a one-click application solution).

So go to your Applescript Editor, paste in the following:

tell application "Finder" to eject (every disk whose ejectable is true and local volume is true and free space is not equal to 0)

and save the script as an application wherever you choose (do NOT use the /tmp folder as illustrated). Add the resulting application to your Dock, and you have a one-click Quick Eject.

Note: the and free space is not equal to 0 portion is so that the script doesn't eject the contents of your CD/DVD drive. Remove that if you would like any inserted disks ejected as well.

On macOS Mojave, you can just simply select both of the drives you want eject and click "CMD+E". This will eject both of your disks without any prompts.


Remove menu bar apps from menu bar in OS X What is best method to remove menu bar apps from MacBook Pro Retina running Mavericks?  I've tried Broomstick and a few others with no real easy success.  I've also tried going through System Preferences / User Groups and then Login Items

I may be misunderstanding, but to remove items from Finder's menu bar is quite simple:

Hold down Command and drag the icon from the menu bar. Poof! It's gone.

This works for all Apple based menu bar items, and some third party items. Usually, when it doesn't work for a third party application, there is an option within the app itself to remove its icon from the menu bar.

I found a way to get rid of any icon from the menu bar of macOS Big Sur.

Open the app whose icon you want to get rid-off from the menu bar.
From the menu bar, near the apple icon > click the name of the app.
Click on its preferences > Advanced > Scroll down to locate 'System Integration' > Under it, Uncheck the check box for Show Tray Icon.
Voilà! The icon is gone.
The steps, almost works for almost every app. [Apps name near Apple Icon on menu bar > Preferences > Look for its Tray icon check box]

Be free to ask if you are unable to remove the icon of any other app.


Browsers won't load pages other than Google and Gmail I have a MacBook with OS X 10.6.8 and I am getting "no data received" on Google Chrome, "the connection was reset" on Firefox and "cant open the page" on Safari.

Google search engine works on Chrome and Firefox but nothing on Safari. Scanned the system with my antivirus and found no issues. Cleared the cookies and cache on all browsers and main system with no change. Mac Office did an update prior to this problem but can't seem to get out of this.

Well, you can start the process of elimination. If you are wifi can you switch to ethernet or vice versa? Are the other computers on the same local network able to connect?

Based on my experience, I can guess that hardware is beginning to fail somewhere. A switch, router or your network adapter. Have you rebooted all of those?


Skype way too quiet. How to get louder Skype audio output on my MacBook Pro? My girlfriend and I are getting really irritated with how quiet Skype is on my new MacBook Pro.  Even with the volume turned up to the max, I can still barely hear her even with my air conditioning and fan off.

At first, I thought about buying a pair of speakers, but even the small USB ones would be irritating to have to have around all the time.  Then I thought of buying a new sound card, but then I realized that iTunes with the preamp in the equalizer set to 12 is actually more than loud enough.

Is there a way that I could connect to that and make Skype that loud?  Or is there any other way to make it louder?

On a smaller note, I've been having the same issue with movies played in Google Chrome.

Did you check the settings in the app "Audio MIDI Setup"?
It's in /Applications/Utilities.
Sometimes the settings there can get out of whack.

In Skype itself, there is a whole bunch of settings called (i don't know the exact english term for them) call/chatquality-quidelines, they are found when clicking on the bars, looking like Wifi-signal. These bars are signals from Skype telling you something about some problems with microphone, speakers and webcam. If you click on these bars, a window posp out, having some tabs there like microphone and speakers. On both, you can adjust the volume skype-internally, both microphone and speakers have a checkbox for automatic adjustment and a manual adjustment bar. try to set them both to manual and maximum on both participating computers.
Since this is mostly out of memory, excuse me for being incorrect! Someone has to find the right english terms...


My iCloud account doesn't have a calendar? I use Google Calendar for my calendaring app. I am trying to solve a problem where calendar invites sent from other people using iCloud won't show up in my Google Calendar (I'm accessing gCal through Sunrise.am, but I don't think that's relevant).

I found this thread on support.apple.com which suggests if you have a Google account with the same email address as your Apple ID, then Apple will send the invite to your iCloud calendar instead of your Google Calendar, unless you log into iCloud and disable the "Use iCloud for incoming invitations" setting:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3454604?start=45&tstart=0

So, today I logged into icloud.com (which I have never used before) to try to disable that setting. However, I don't seem to have a calendar?

There is no mention of a calendar under the settings section. I also tried directly visiting https://www.icloud.com/#calendar and got redirected back to the home page. I've tried googling a ton, and can't find any mention of an iCloud account with no calendar.

I'm getting really frustrated with this, and just want invites from iCloud users to get through to my Google Calendar. I've already missed an important meeting due to this problem and really need it solved. :(

If you haven't signed in with your Apple ID on an Apple device at least once in its history, these are the only services available to you.

  What is web-only access to iCloud?

  Web-only access is a free level of iCloud service that's available to anyone, including people who don't own or use Apple devices. It includes access to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iCloud and 1 GB of free storage for any documents you create.

You can obtain the other features by signing in on an Apple device.

  How do I get the full set of iCloud features?

  If you have an iOS device or Mac, you can get the full set of iCloud features. Simply sign in to iCloud in Settings on your iOS device or System Preferences on your Mac. You'll get immediate access to all iCloud features and 5 GB of free storage. You can also choose additional storage plans from your device.

For more information, see this Apple KB article:

Web-only access to iCloud

There is no calendar feature option for non-iOS users.


DNS not resolving on Mac OS X Some of my coworkers are having troubles on their Macs - DNS resolution does not work under Mac OS X. They're running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. They can use DNS in a Windows 7 virtual machine (VMware Fusion 3.1.3) running under OS X. The computers are 15" MacBook Pros, early 2011 model.

Things they've tried that have not worked:

turning airport on/off
rebooting
using wired connection instead wifi
deleting connection credentials and adding it again
turning off Mac firewall
using fixed static IP
manually setting DNS servers
restarting mDNSResponder
the fixes from this other question

EDIT response Martín's answer:

• Can you ping the DNS you want to use?

$ ping apple.com
ping: cannot resolve apple.com: Unknown host

• What is/are the IP address(es) of the DNS(s) you want to use?

This is a company DNS server that is given with DHCP, it works well for
other people. I've also tried Google's 8.8.4.4 and 205.171.3.65 (which I found from GRC's DNS Benchmark to be the fastest).

• Have you tried using 8.8.8.8 (google) or any of the OpenDNS
   208.67.222.222 or 208.67.220.220?

It doesn't work, see Google Chrome output:

  The server at www.apple.com can't be found, because the DNS lookup failed. DNS is the network service that translates a website's name to its Internet address. This error is most often caused by having no connection to the Internet or a misconfigured network. It can also be caused by an unresponsive DNS server or a firewall preventing Google Chrome from accessing the network.

• Can you ping those hosts?

$ ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from
8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=58 time=3.925 ms

• creating a blank user

A guest user account was created, the DNS issue was still there when using
the guest account.

• nslookup and dig both work fine

$ nslookup www.apple.com 8.8.8.8
Server:  8.8.8.8
Address: 8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer:
www.apple.com canonical name = www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net.
www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net canonical name = www.apple.com.edgekey.net.
www.apple.com.edgekey.net canonical name = e3191.c.akamaiedge.net.
Name: e3191.c.akamaiedge.net
Address: 184.24.141.15

$ dig @8.8.8.8 www.apple.com
; <<>> DiG 9.6.0-APPLE-P2 <<>> @8.8.8.8 www.apple.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 11298
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION: ;www.apple.com.   IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.apple.com.  1041 IN CNAME www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net.
www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net. 38 IN CNAME www.apple.com.edgekey.net.
www.apple.com.edgekey.net. 8794 IN CNAME e3191.c.akamaiedge.net.
e3191.c.akamaiedge.net. 17 IN A 184.24.141.15
;; Query time: 4 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Tue Oct 4 09:25:28 2011
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 158

• also flushing the DNS cache was done but it didn't help

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

EDIT 2:

$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
#
# Mac OS X Notice
#
# This file is not used by the host name and address resolution
# or the DNS query routing mechanisms used by most processes on
# this Mac OS X system.
#
# This file is automatically generated.
#
domain {redacted}.com
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 208.67.222.222

It turns out the solution was to bounce mDNSResponder:

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

This was obtained by a different coworker from this Server Fault question.

OS X 10.10.0 – 10.10.3, Yosemite

Apparently, mDNSResponder doesn't exist in Yosemite (OS X 10.10). You can restart descoveryd instead to fix these issues.

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist

OS X 10.10.4+, Yosemite

In OSX 10.10.4 the mDNSResponder has been reintroduced. So use the first one will work again.

After upgrading from Snow Leopard on an old Mac Book to Mountain Lion, the system could not resolve DNS. Flushing, restart, nothing helped. Changing WiFi to a different Access point (my phone) helped.

Mountain Lion adds a new client field to the DHCP network settings. Filling in this field seemed to make the wifi access point happy. Leaving it blank meant nothing was getting thru, even though the wifi connection seemed to succeed.


I Mac wireless keyboard return key not working My wireless keyboard return key isn't working, it randomly stopped with no damage to the keyboard and is not stuck down i.e still clicks, can you help please?


Is Mac OS X in a VirtualBox VM suitable for iOS development? I have finally successfully managed to install Mac OS X in a virtual machine on my Windows 7 laptop using VirtualBox and a tutorial from Lifehacker.

Performance is very slow, with Mountain Lion reporting that it is seeing just 4MB video memory (I didn't manage to load the Intel HD3000 driver). Youtube is essentially unplayable, with even the audio potion stuttering. That said, the interface and general UI is pretty acceptable.

Even with such slow performance, does it make sense to download and develop with Xcode? I am allocating 3GB of RAM. What would performance be like under those conditions?

If this is a hobby and you are not planning on releasing any apps to the app store, and you can tolerate the slow performance and don't care about running on real devices, then don't worry about it. However, if you are creating a business the it is essential to run on real hardware. Any low end Mac (MacBook Air 11", is my current favorite) will blow away any virtual machine.

I have a fairly simple app that runs fine on my iPad and iPod Touch, but has all sorts of graphic anomalies in the simulator.

Essentially, you're running 2 virtual boxes if you use the iOS emulator and take this approach. 1 for OSX and 1 (essentially) for the emulator. This can get very cpu and ram intensive but it's doable. Best bet, give it a shot.
If you don't like, just remove the vm image.


An email as my name on other people's phone, iOS7 update Why is my email popping up on other people's phone as my name?

Ever since I did the iOS7 update on my phone, my messages are not coming up as "sussy joes" it is now some kind of email.

How do I stop this from happening?

The first thing that comes to mind would be if messages is set (or became reset during the iOS 7 upgrade) to start new conversations from your Apple ID email instead of your phone number.

Open Settings app
Swipe up and tap Messages
Tap Send & Receive
Verify that the checkmark is next to the phone number

You'll want to watch for errors like I have below where the messages is still waiting for activation. (That might force it to send as your Apple ID until the activation finishes.)

Set the "Caller ID" or send as email or phone:

Go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> under Contacts, select Short Name and turn it off.


Does the Adult Swim iOS app support Chromecast? I want to stream Rick and Morty to my Chromecast from the Adult Swim iOS app. However, unlike most media apps, the Adult Swim app doesn't seem to be detecting my Chromecast automatically.

Is it possible to stream Adult Swim shows to a Chromecast from an iPhone?

Note: I am aware that developers need to manually add Chromecast support to an app for it to be streamed. However, it seems like an odd omission when Adult Swim's sister app Cartoon Network was recently updated to add Chromecast support.

iOS developers have to manually add support for Chromecast streaming (video/audio).

If you want to stream the content of this app to a Chromecast, please let the developers know. Only they are able to add support for it.

Did this answer your question?


Can't figure out how remote share is getting automounted I have a NAS that stores the music files for iTunes. There is an automounted share on the NAS that iTunes goes thru to retrieve the music files. For the life of me I can't figure out how the automount is defined. I need to change NAS units, and therefore need to change the share mount.

The share is mounted to /Network/media and looks and acts like an automount. (Comes and goes on demand.) The /etc/auto_* files appear pristine, yet...

sol:etc sjf$ sudo automount -vc
automount: /net updated
automount: /home updated
automount: /Network/media updated
automount: no unmounts

shows  that /Network/media is  being controlled by automount

/etc/auto_master...

#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master        # Use directory service
/net            -hosts      -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home           auto_home   -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers    -fstab
/-          -static

and /etc/auto_home...

#
# Automounter map for /home
#
+auto_home  # Use directory service
#
# Get /home records synthesized from user records
#
+/usr/libexec/od_user_homes

There is no /etc/fstab, but there's an /etc/fstab.hd. It only contains...

IGNORE THIS FILE.
This file does nothing, contains no useful data, and might go away in
future releases.  Do not depend on this file or its contents.

The mount I want to change is...

nas2.controlsoftcorp.com:/media on /Network/media (nfs, nodev, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)

What am I missing?

(currently using 10.8, but need to solve this issue on 10.9 too.)

Well the answer is that it is entered using Directory Utility.


Upgrade to higher memory or faster processor on MacBook Air I'm zeroing on buying the 2012 MacBook Air. My usage of the machine will be mostly for development work (MySQL, Eclipse, Xcode, Android, etc.). I will also be running Windows 7 with SQL Server in a virtual box or by using Boot Camp. My question is which upgrade will result in the most bang for the buck: more RAM or a faster processor? Does putting higher memory/processor make the machine run hotter?

With all that stuff you're running, you probably won't be happy with 4 GB of RAM. If it's truly an either/or decision, up the RAM unless you know that you won't be paging with only 4 GB.

The processor goes from a 1.8 GHz Core i5 to a 2.0 GHz Core i7. I'm not sure that's all that much of a noticeable increase.

As for temperature, Apple will put in a sufficiency of cooling regardless of the processor you choose. I don't really get why people get freaky about laptop heat output: any heat problem I've ever heard of is due to environmental factors that the user (not the manufacturer) has control over.

All that said, I got a 2012 MacBook Air with 8 GB RAM and the 2.0 GHz Core i7, and I'm super happy with it. It's noticeably faster than my previous, a 2011 Air with 4 GB RAM and the 1.8 GHz Core i7, but I suspect that's mostly the RAM and the better graphics between the 2011 and 2012 models.

tl;dr: probably the RAM, maybe the processor. It all depends on how you're going to use the machine.

I see no reason to buy RAM from Apple. After that, decide on the processor you need and get the right model. If you see you are getting many page outs get some memory from Amazon for few bucks.

I can't tell much about the memory temps. I would guess with more memory you get less/no page outs which would probably make it cooler as it will work less but doubt its going to affect overall temps.

CPU temps depends on model and use you got to look that up if its important.


How do I force OSX to use IGMP version 2? I am connected to an old NETGEAR smart-switch which only supports IGMPv2. It doesnt route multicast traffic to my mac because it joins the group using IGMPv3.

I tried this:

sysctl net.inet.igmp.default_version=2

but it doesn't work - OSX still sends out IGMPv3 packets (confirmed with wireshark).

Is there a way of forcing IGMPv2?

Im using Yosemite (10.10.2), in case that makes a difference.

There is a beginning of an answer here :

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3328862

This commands should forward to the correct IGMP.

 sudo sysctl net.inet.igmp.default_version=2
 sudo sysctl net.inet.igmp.sendra=0


Looking for a decent time-tracking application for Mac I am a freelance graphic designer and need to track the time spent on projects so I can bill my clients accordingly. There are a ton of services and applications out there but somehow none of them really fits.

Here's what I am looking for:

A stable desktop app. I don't want to do my time tracking in the browser.
Stop recording when screensaver or sleep mode starts.
A product I can buy, not a subscription service. I feel more comfortable and in control if I pay $100 upfront than pay $10 a month
An easy-to-use UI that tracks time by client, project and task.
Billing support is a bonus, but not necessary.

Here is what I don't need, so if the solution contains it, at least is shouldn't interfere with a simple workflow and efficiency:

Not necessary: Smartphone app, team collaboration, cloud.

All I want is a pay-once, stand-alone, well-supported and nicely designed time-tracking app. Do products exist in this space for OSX?

I am listing the apps I have looked at so far. I must emphasize that none of them really solves the problem stated above perfectly.

Here's what I have looked at so far based on my google doc list

On the Job looks great, but the developer seems to have abandoned it. At least he does not really fix bugs and is very slow to respond to his user base.
Timings light-weight but the UI to create clients, projects and tasks can be confusing. I am testing it right now. A friend uses it and says it crashes sometimes though it has not happended to me yet.
Harvest looks good, it does have a desktop client itself and an API that is used by lots of apps. But it is subscription-only which is a no-go for me and costs at least $12 per month.
The same goes for Toggl: looks good, but is subscription-based and costs $5 per month
iBiz and timeEdition have been discontinued
Klok is an Adobe Air app. The UI feels weird. Small typography, limited support for keyboard shortcuts and complex interface.
OfficeTime feels like the best match so far but the UI is very cluttered (see this screenshot of the Generate Bill dialog as an example). It feels a bit like a Windows app that has been ported to Mac but I am not sure if that's true.
Timecop is a very minimal approach. There is no way to test it without paying the $6.99 price. Has not been updated for 9 months, twitter account has been inactive for 5 months.
Tictoc seems very similar to Timecop. No way to test without buying either.

I would suggest you to go with the advanced version of apps, the cloud based app which could help keep track of the time in an hourly format and the lost of data which might be a risk in desktop app will be quite less.

But still if you are looking for some desktop app then

rescuetime
timedoctor
replicon

would be good choices.


Can't move spaces from one screen to another I am using OS X 10.9. I am unable to drag Desktops from one screen to another, I am only able to switch arrangements on the screen that its on.

Here are my Mission Control settings

EDIT: Very strange, after a reboot the functionality seems to be working now without me making any changes.

You can only move non-active desktops between screens.

If the desktop you want to move is the only desktop on the screen, then create another desktop, make that the active desktop, and then drag the non-active desktop.

There is a maximum number of spaces you can have per display.  I don't know if this number is determined by the resolution of your display, by memory, or if it is arbitrarily assigned.  For me, I have two HDMI displays, and I can have 16 spaces per display.

Is it possible that you have reached the maximum number of spaces for the destination display (the display you are dragging the new desktop to?

Are you able to add new spaces to the destination display by clicking on the + icon when you hover at the top right edge of the display?


How to make Safari remember my password for sites where autocomplete=off? Safari will remember my password on most sites, if I ask it to.  However, some "high-security" sites disable this functionality.  I want to override their override, and have Safari remember my password on that site -- even though the site doesn't want me to.

These "high-security" sites specify autocomplete=off in the HTML.  Most browsers will honor this and decline to remember your password, in that case.  For some browsers, like Firefox, folks have discovered ways to change this aspect of browser behavior and force the browser to remember your password, even on a site that uses autocomplete=off.  I know how to do it on Firefox, but that doesn't work on Safari. Yes, I do understand the security implications of doing this.

How do I make Safari remember my password for sites where autocomplete=off?

References:

http://randosity.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/stupid-security-measures-autocompleteoff/
http://www.howtogeek.com/62980/how-to-force-your-browser-to-remember-passwords/
http://lapcatsoftware.com/blog/2010/06/10/safari-extension-autocomplete/

The "autocomplete" extension in the third link works for me.

Here is a step-by-step recipe on how to install it, for others who may run into this:

Launch Safari.  In the menubar, click on Safari >> Preferences.  Under the Advanced pane, tick the box labelled "Show Develop menu in menu bar" at the bottom.
In the Safari menubar, you should now see Develop.  Click on Develop, then click on "Enable Extensions".
Download the extension from here: http://lapcatsoftware.com/downloads/autocomplete.safariextz
In your downloads folder, click on the file that you just downloaded.  Safari will ask you whether you want to install this extension.  Say yes.

Now you're good to go!

Use Google chrome. It memorizes all passwords and auto fills them for you. Haven't gotten safari to do that for me on all the sites I want to yet.


How can I force my phone to send iMessage instead of SMS? (I'm in a mobile promo) [Iphone 5 iOS 9.0.2] I am new to apple and I want to use iMessage. When I am connected to the internet, I thought SMS would automatically send as iMessage. The one I'm texting also uses iPhone 5 and we're both connected to internet.  I still have to know what their e-mail to text them in iMessage.

You can go to Settings > Messages and turn the Send as SMS option off. (The actual names of the options may be different as I am just translating from my local language settings.)


Copying to external USB drive in Mac OS X 10.8.2 yields "Device not configured" and hard lock I am copying using cp or mv on the command line a large amount (>500gb) of files each sized between 600MB and 2.6GB to an external drive (a Thermaltake BlacX Duet), but after a significant but inconsistent amount of transfer (e.g. 121gb) the following happens:

A message pops up in a dialog box that says "The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off." (There were no physical events that took place that would have resulted in a disconnection)
The copy fails for an item and all subsequent items, complaining with various errors including:

"device not configured"
"Invalid argument" (because the destination no longer exists)
"No such file or directory" (ibid)

The Terminal locks up
Executing 'Force Quit' on Terminal quits the Terminal, but it cannot be reopened
Finder locks up
No applications will start
Relaunching Finder causes the menu bar at the top and the dock to disappear
Rebooting does not succeed (i.e. one must hard-restart by holding the power button); variations on ejecting (before Finder locks) and unplugging the USB cable appear to have no effect on the inevitability of this result.

Note that roughly the same result occurs when attempting the same copy in Finder. In particular the dialog entitled "Copy" remains open, clicking the "Stop copy" "X" button causes an indefinite pause with "Stopping ..." showing. One can still access the Finder, and even read from the drive, but relaunching Finder causes it to display seemingly indefinitely "Application not responding" and in any case one cannot start new applications.

After rebooting, the destination has received most of the data. Disk utility reveals no issues with the destination drive.

I have Spotlight disabled for the external drive, if that makes any difference.

Obviously the expected behaviour from copying is not to have the computer hard-lock requiring a forced reboot.

For obvious reasons (Terminal being locked, applications won't start) it is hard to diagnose the problem.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT

I have had some success by repartitioning the drive into two main partitions of about equal size (460GB) on the drive at the beginning and end with a medium sized partition in the middle (as it seems that this error is occurring at around the "middle" of the drive size). However, I am uneasy about this very speculative solution. But if it works, I can get on with life. :) In any case, insight into the nature of the underlying issue is most welcome.

The most common problem with external usb drives are the small power adapter with 2A. I have various WD Drives and all give up after a time with the same error "The disk was not ejected properly...". Without power the hd disconects (for a short time). I bought a bigger power adapter with 3 A and have no problems any more.

This has been a recent discovery for me as well. Same situation. I'm running the latest update of 10.8.2 and Finder seems to lock up after doing some file transfers to an external drive, then prompting me with the message "disk not ejected correctly". I restart my computer, same thing happens. I'm becoming very disappointed that my computer can't do even the most simplest task. I hope there is a fix for this soon.


How can I download the installer for macOS Sierra 10.12? I have a MacBook Pro running El Capitan that I need to upgrade to Sierra 10.12 (not High Sierra) for development reasons.

I have previously upgraded my personal computer as follows: El Capitan -> Sierra -> High Sierra.  Knowing that, I should be able to see the previous version in the App Store as outlined in this answer.

However, I don't see Sierra in my Purchased tab in the App Store:

Was Sierra 10.12 completely removed from the store (including previous purchases)?

Apple now has a page up and live store links to download Sierra after High Sierra was announced.

Apple makes Sierra available even after High Sierra is released.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208202

The link to the installer on the Mac App Store is: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-sierra/id1127487414?ls=1&mt=12

If for some reason that article or link are gone, you may need to have an Apple ID that previously downloaded 10.12 Sierra - then it will be in purchased and a quick download. If you feel it’s missing, check with Apple Store support and your “purchase” receipt emails / purchase history. This is a change from older releases where you had to make sure and get an installer purchased before general release.

If Sierra legitimately isn’t in your purchased list, and for some reason the KB above gets pulled at some point:

You might be able to take your Mac to Apple Service and have the OS loaded.
You might be able to use Internet Recovery to install the OS that came with your Mac - so you’d need to buy or have a Mac that shipped with 10.12.
Find someone you trust to make you a bootable Install macOS Sierra installer drive - a 8 GB USB drive works well for this.

you may use this link to download Sierra
https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/macos-sierra/id1127487414?mt=12


Your connection is not private I am unable to access certain websites within Chrome. I am getting the error message "Your connection is not private". Anyone know how to fix this?

I've already tried the following:
Cleared cache and cookies, resetting the browser, reinstalling the browser,
downgrading/upgrading the browser (happens on multiple versions of Chrome)
and same websites work in Firefox and Safari.
I've corrected the time and that did not fix the issue. I ran the command sudo ntpdate -u time.apple.com

Click on the Advanced link on the bottom left.  It will show you an option to continue on to the site you want to visit.

Chrome will show you this page if it finds problems with certificates, http vs https, etc.  It's just to let you know that it thinks something's not right and it gives you the option to continue or go back.

The most common cause of this issue is an incorrect date & time set on your PC. Chrome makes sure that your computer's clock matches the clock in a Google server farm, and if it doesn't, will block the connection to HTTPS sites for security reasons.

To fix your issue, set your computer's clock to the correct current time.

Go to System Preferences
Choose Date & Time
Navigate to the Date & Time tab
Change the current time to the correct time (accurate to the nearest minute will do).

Edit: If it's not your computer's fault, it's just a Chrome security feature. Chrome detects malicious activity going on with the site (like malware-laced ads, breach by hackers, etc.) and automatically warns you to protect you if it believes your security or safety might be at risk. If you want to override the warning, just hit Advanced -> Continue to site.


How to add calendar entries in iPhone 6? I am trying to make entries in the calendar on iPhone 6. I complete everything as on my previous iPhone, but there is no 'done' button.  Checked online and it says to press 'add' once complete.

I do this, but then the whole entry is lost without saving. What do I have to do to persist my appointments?

You may be inadvertently saving the event to the wrong calendar. Often email accounts, such as Gmail automatically enable a calendar when being set up. If the event shows up only on your iPhone, and nowhere else, chances are your default calendar is set to something that you are not used to checking.

When you create an event, scroll down to where you can see the menu item "Calendar". Tap that, and choose one of your iCloud calendars. If the event then shows up on iCloud, and your computer, you have chosen the correct calendar.

If this is case, you will probably want to change your default calendar by opening your Settings.app, scrolling down and selecting "Mail, Contacts, and Calendar". At the bottom of this screen is a section titled "Calendars". Change the "Default Calendar" to reflect the one that worked correctly.

here

You must have the desired calendar checked in the calendars list (center bottom of day). Even if you only have one calendar, this is not checked by default.


I have removed all mail accounts from my iPhone and reset it. What's using storage? I have deleted all my e-mail accounts from Mail from the iPhone -- iCloud, my work account, etc., and have reset the phone (powering off and then back on) a couple of times.

In Settings/General/Storage, I still show 186 MB of data being used by mail. Is the Mail app itself 186 MB? If not, how can I free up some of the space being "used" when there are no accounts at all on the phone?

I struggled with this and spent a whole day trying to figure out why my mail app on my iphone suddenly took up 2.5.gigabytes of storage!  I did all of the suggestions on various websites to no avail.  I did however finally FIX IT.  I deleted all of my mail accounts and then DELTED THE MAIL APP.  Presto!  This seemed to be the key to fix the problem.  I was able to recover 2.5 gigs of storage back to my 16gb iphone.   I then reinstalled the mail app and started over again.  This seemed to work for me.  Another thing to try is to download one of the many (and good) third party email apps.  Hope this helps you all.
-Patty

in iPhone go to Settings->General->Storage&iCloudUsage->Storage->ManageStorage.  and see what is using storage.


My bluetooth keyboard keeps losing connection for just a second or two My wireless keyboard keeps losing connectivity for a few seconds but then connects back fine. This happens sporadically so I can't figure out if something particular is causing this. This will happen several times in a row over a short period before connecting and staying connected for several days. My wireless mouse never loses connection. My wireless keyboard is located right in front and slightly below my iMac. I'm running Sierra with the Apple wireless keyboard. Keyboard has new batteries and shows 70% charged.

Go to system preferences, sharing, bluetooth, advanced settings.


Lion orphaned installer After upgrading to Lion, and verifying/repairing my disk, I noticed a 3.5 GB file in /lost+found. Ran file on it and it reported it as an xar archive, so I ran xar -t on it to discover it is the Lion installer I downloaded from the App Store.

Just wondering if anyone else sees this and if it's safe to delete the file?

I had the same situation. I figure since the OS is installed and working fine, and /lost+found isn’t where it would look for anything anyway, it’s safe to delete that file. Fair warning, that’s an answer based on reasoning, not any official information.

For background on lost+found, I’d suggest reading "What is the purpose of the lost+found folder?" on Unix & Linux SE, rather than the TechRadar article linked in another answer on this question. The TechRadar article wanders, slowly, through several tangentially related topics, whereas the SE answer cuts straight to the point, has technical detail, and has a high vote count from the community.

Just realized you said /lost+found, not trash. I found this article regarding lost and found folder. Maybe you had a system issue in the past, and some files were saved there to help recover. Check out the article. Very interesting.


Start iMac in Target Display Mode without dedicated keyboard I have an older iMac which I am retiring as a display. It works well enough in target display mode, but I have keep the keyboard around just to switch it to display mode.

Is there a way to

boot the iMac into target display mode
start target display mode remotely, such as from the console?

There are two options that I'm aware of which may meet your needs:

Use the 1Keyboard app. This allows you to pair your computers via bluetooth and then use 1Keyboard to send the CommandF2 keyboard shortcut. It basically allows you to use one keyboard with multiple devices.
Use VirtualKVM. This was designed specifically for people wanting to use their iMacs in target display mode, and works especially well in situations where you want to connect a MacBook to the iMac. For example, if you plug your MacBook into your iMac via Thunderbolt, this extention will automatically switch the iMac to Target Display Mode, allowing you to use your iMac as a monitor. It also switches off the Bluetooth on the iMac, freeing up your mouse and keyboard to pair with your MacBook (assuming you're using a bluetooth keyboard and mouse). When you unplug the MacBook, the iMac's Bluetooth will be powered back up and the monitor restored.

The above options should work fine. If you're a more advanced user, you could also check out this Super User question.

forget it! you can't enter target display mode without a physical keyboard connected on your iMac


How to make autocorrect to correct "i" to "I" "i" in english is always "I". Is there a preference to autocorrect that auto corrects  small "i" to capital "I" in macOS?

Try System Preferences/Keyboard/Text/  check Capitalize Words Automatically

(Only available starting with Sierra)

Just type small "L" , it is as same as l


how to use ipad to access webserver on macbook air my webserver software is nginx which runs very well on macbook air using mac os x 10.7.5

when i go to http://myapp.localhost on my macbook air, i can access my website perfectly which is running on localhost.

how can i access the website from my iPad? I am asking because i want to test if my website allows tablet to access just as well on desktop browsers.

i have two possible setups.

1) macbook air running HUAWEI-MOBILEModem and using INTERNET SHARING to allow the iPad to access.

2) when both macbook air and iPad are accessing the same WIFI connection.

Please provide solutions for both scenarios.

UPDATE:
i have more than 1 app running on my macbook air nginx webserver.

for conveniences, let's call them

http://myapp1.localhost
http://myapp2.localhost

etc.

How can my iPad access the correct webapp hosted on my macbook air?

UPDATE

on my macbook air, i access different webapps because i edited my /etc/hosts file.

localhost is device-specific, so visiting it on your iPad is is taking you to a page on your iPad itself (that probably doesn't exist).

To access a page that is served from your Mac from your iPad, use the Mac's local IP address instead of localhost. To get your Mac's local IP, open the Network pane of System Preferences. Select your active network on the left and the IP will be shown on the right under the Connected heading. It will probably be something that looks like 10.0.1.1 or 127.0.1.1.

I think the easiest thing to do is get the hosts IP address. For example, on the command line run this :

curl icanhazip.com

You will get your external IP addres {described below as $IP_ADDRESS}.

Then on your iPad just point the browser to that IP address:

http://$IP_ADDRESS/


Anyone with experience in hacking the codesigning on OS X? Apparently Mavericks doesn't allow any property list/configuration file to be used when it's been changed since release from Apple.(This opposed to previous versions of OS X, where you could do some editing and still run the app)

For those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about:

There is a file called "CodeResources" which holds hashes/code signatures of each and every file in an app's folder. Now there's this one trick I want to do, which involves editing the Info.plist in Boot Camp(utility to run Windows on another partition) so I can install Windows 8 from USB (I downloaded the iso via our college's site for free and I don't want to burn it to DVD, because I'm cheap/stubborn like that).

Once I modify /Applications/Utilities/Boot Camp Assistant.app/Contents
/Info.plist, Is it possible to codesign the app myself or otherwise get it to run?

Before OS X 10.10, you can run sudo codesign -fs - /Applications/Utilities/Boot\ Camp\ Assistant.app to re-sign the app with an ad-hoc signature.

In order to re-sign it in 10.10, you need to additionally specify the --deep command to re-sign bootcamp:

sudo codesign -fs - /Applications/Utilities/Boot\ Camp\ Assistant.app --deep

  '--deep' When signing a bundle, specifies that nested code content such as helpers, frameworks, and plug-ins, should be recursively signed
               in turn. Beware that all signing options you specify will apply, in turn, to such nested content.
               When verifying a bundle, specifies that any nested code content will be recursively verified as to its full content. By default,
               verification of nested content is limited to a shallow investigation that may not detect changes to the nested code.
               When displaying a signature, specifies that a list of directly nested code should be written to the display output. This lists only
               code directly nested within the subject; anything nested indirectly will require recursive application of the codesign command.

Just what I needed, thanks.

But in os x version 10.10 upwards you require the following command:

sudo codesign -fs - /Applications/Utilities/Boot\ Camp\ Assistant.app --deep

It will prompt for the install of command tools, then will work without issues.


Option to open files from the Trash When we double-click or ⌘O a file in the Trash, we’re greeted with a message that it cannot be opened.

But there it no technical reason for this, as evidenced by the fact we can circumvent this limitation in a number of ways (such as opening it via an app’s Open dialog, or the Terminal).

But I’d rather be able to open them with ⌘O or double-click. Note I’m not interested in solutions that require an external script or a new shortcut.

Is there an option to disable the default behaviour (that leads to the dialog)? Seems like a candidate for a defaults write solution.

If you just want to verify whether it is the correct file to delete (especially with generic file names like FullSizeRender.jpg): You can still engage QuickLook on files in the trash by tapping Space.


Safari crash on iOS 9.2.1 [Iphone 6s is what I am using]

I have already tried everything on this threat and nothing worked. Its the same problem, I open safari and whenever I try to click on the search bar on the top of the screen, the app crashes and send me back to the homepage. I am using google search engine and I have suggested search turned on and I have tried the following:

Clearing history

changing browsers

Checking for battery saving mode

tried without suggested search

restarted my iphone

None worked.....

I was having the same issue. I turned off the "Search Engine Suggestion" and the "Safari Suggestions" in Settings under Safari. Try and see if that works.. It worked for me!!

It seems to be a problem these days. Did you also disable "spotlight suggestions" in Safari settings?  EDIT: Maybe a reset will do?


Setting the system-wide PATH environment variable in Mavericks In previous OS versions one could set the system-wide PATH environment variable in /etc/launchd.conf to make it available for all apps (not just the command line).

In Mavericks this appears to be no longer used.

Is there another technique for doing this in mavericks?

Yosemite

/etc/launchd.conf is no longer supported in 10.10. See man launchctl:

  The /etc/launchd.conf file is no longer consulted for subcommands to run during early boot time; this functionality was removed for security considerations.

You can now for example save this plist as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my.startup.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>my.startup</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>sh</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>launchctl setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

The launchctl setenv command is ran as the user, so it only applies to processes launched in the user domain.

This method doesn't apply to applications that are reopened at login if "Reopen windows when logging back in" is checked.

Mavericks and earlier

In 10.9 and earlier, you can for example run

echo setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin|sudo tee -a /etc/launchd.conf

and then restart to apply the changes.

Other methods

/etc/paths and /etc/paths.d/ apply only (or mainly) to shells. The lines in /etc/paths and /etc/paths.d/* are added to the path by path_helper, which is run from /etc/profile, /etc/zshenv, and /etc/csh.login. I don't know any programs other than shells that would consider /etc/paths or /etc/paths.d/.

~/.MacOSX/environment.plist stopped working in 10.8.

Simply add your 'bin' (the path that you want to add) path to /etc/paths file - reboot or relogin !!!

sudo vi /etc/paths
(create a file (paths file) if it does't exist, I am using 'vi' editor, you can use your own as super user )
then, add your bin directory path like below

/usr/local/mysql/bin
/usr/local/apache-ant-1.9.3/bin
/usr/local/gradle-1.11/bin

save the file and relogin ... hope this helps


I want to disable automatic brightness adjusting, but where is the setting? I'm basically trying trying to find this setting:

From this question, but can't find it on this Snow Leopard MacBook. My version of that settings window has the slider, plus a list of resolutions, but not the "auto brightness" checkbox.

Have you tried doing an SMC Reset to see if the option appears in the Display preference pane?

Also, some information about what operating system and model you're using would be helpful.

Edit: After further research, it appears that the model in question does not have an Ambient Light Sensor (ALS) which is required for the automatic brightness adjustment feature.

Use the Fkey or Command Key equivalent to adjust the display brightness.

You may be be more interested in changing the contrast

If so go to the system preference - Accessibility ↳  display !

Voila!


Why is my MacBook Pro already using swap memory? I have a late 2013 MacBook Pro 13" with 8 GB of memory. Lately my MacBook Pro uses swap memory, when it has enough free memory. Is this normal and can I do something about it? Also when I only have safari and let's say Xcode open it uses 99% of the RAM. Is this normal behavior?

This is normal behavior. You are not experiencing any memory issues in your screenshot above. What I suspect is happening is that OS X is creating some placeholder of sorts to enable swap memory, rather than actually using swap memory here. I have never seen a zero in the swap memory section, unless I have just restarted and open the Activity Monitor window fresh, and even then, I rarely see zero.

With Mavericks and Yosemite, the way the OS uses memory changed a bit. Essentially, the OS takes all the memory, and then manages it out as needed. So, our traditional way of looking at the memory report in Activity Monitor is not really valid. Due to this, Mavericks added the 'Memory Pressure' gauge, to give you an idea of when you have a limitation caused by memory. In your screenshot, you have a green memory pressure. For more see this answer.

Ars Technica has a nice description of this 'memory compression' in their Mavericks review:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/17/

Your Mac runs on Unix ( certified Single Unix Specification 2003 ), and that OS has been around for 40+ years. Core components (like memory management) are written, updated, debugged and polished by people who are definitive experts in the field. Apple, with more cash on hand than the US Treasury, can afford to hire the absolute best.

So, unless you have at least a PhD in theoretical computer science, and wrote your thesis on kernel-level process and memory management, stop worrying about the memory management. I have 24Gb in my desktop and it still uses swap. This concerns me not at all.