Keyboard Shortcut For Entering Screen Saver How can I enter Screen Saver without wating few minutes? Is there an application I could run, keyboard shortcut maybe? I'm using rMBP running ML.

EDIT: All I found was using Hot Corner as explained here: https://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#quickscreensaver

Basically it means I have to move my mouse cursor into a corner and maybe comine a key such as command to enter Screen Saver. I don't really like this solution.

If you open Keychain Access (I use Spotlight, but you can go to /Applications/Utilities), go to the main menu and hit Preferences... (or Command-,) you'll find a checkbox labeled "Show keychain status in menu bar..." If you check it, you'll get a little lock in your menubar.

If you click "Lock Screen", your screensaver will activate. I use this at work as an OSX Control-Alt-Delete alternative.

(Note: it will require your user password to unlock the screen. This may/may not be desirable.)

Hot corners suck if they activate when you don't want them, as they frequently do for me.  A keyboard shortcut is much easier to control precisely.

OSX Daily explains how to do it right:
How to Start the Mac Screen Saver with a Keyboard Shortcut in OS X


All calendar entries lost across iPhone 4, iPad, MacBook Air after iPhone upgraded to iOS 7. Help? My husband has lost all his calendar entries after upgrading to iOS 7 on his iPhone earlier today. He deleted 3 football calendars from his iPhone as they were duplicated.  Everything was fine.  Now everything is gone, including on iCloud.

He has no back up elsewhere.

Any ideas?

You might want to put both devices in offline mode (or power down the router) in case the duplicates were not really and the calendars were deleted.

You can use another computer (or a web browser) to log into iCloud.com and inspect the calendars as far as Apple sees things.

If the calendar data is still in the cloud, then your missing data is due to an error on each device or a temporary network condition.

Have you checked backups on your local machine?  iOS backups specifically. I have used iBackupBot to cherry pick lost data from past backups & restore to my iDevice.  Additionally, you could do a brute force restore from a backup to see if that brings it back.


Prevent Network-Discovery on Infrastructure side The Finder displays nearby Computers and Devices in the left column whenever a network connection is present.

Sometimes we let clients use our network when we discuss projects in meetings (aka they bring their Notebooks along). In some cases we would prefer if they couldn't see all the machines and devices in our network.

Is there a way to prevent the discovery of other network clients on the infrastructure side? I tried blocking Bonjour traffic, however, the Macs are still able to see who's around?

It's possible to block Bonjour traffic by configuring pf to disallow:

MAC addresses:
01:00:5E:00:00:FB – IPv4
33:33:00:00:00:FB – IPv6
IP addresses:
224.0.0.251 – multicast IPv4 address
FF02::FB – multicast IPv6 address
UDP port 5353

However, this will also impact your own regular and "desirable" hosts.

One possibility is to configure a VLAN and set it up as default network for your clients. A VLAN - properly set up - spans its own broadcast domain which can't be bypassed or bridged by Bonjour traffic.

You need appropriate devices in your network environment to be able to create VLANs.

The computers are not being discovered by Bonjour; they're being discovered by NetBIOS.

NetBIOS is a common network protocol that all IP-based devices use to announce themselves on the network.  That includes printers, security cameras, phones, etc.  It cannot be disabled on the infrastructure side (well, technically it can but this would break one of the core components of TCP/IP).

The only way to prevent someone from "sniffing" other computers is to isolate them on a different network.  Since we're talking about laptops here, that means they're connecting via WiFi.  The best course of action would be to set up a guest WiFi network.

If you want to make the attempt, the ports you need to block are:

TCP port 139
UDP ports 137 and 138


Is there a keyboard shortcut for the therefore sign "∴" on mac? Or is there a way to create a keyboard shortcut for it? The therefore sign "∴" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therefore_sign) is something I may need to use a lot. How can I get a keyboard shortcut for it?

I found several answers for you here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3685146/how-do-you-do-the-therefore-%E2%88%B4-symbol-on-a-mac-or-in-textmate

a google search is all it took.

In the character viewer under math symbols. ∴

period (then) OPT+H (then) period

OPT+H gives you the superscript dot: ˙

So you end up with .˙.


Is it possible to have more than one active windows on Lion? I am in a situation where I really need to have multiple windows to be active simultaneously. I know it is against the optimization principle of most operating systems, but is it possible?

Here is my story: I will be presenting a network project this weekend at somewhere far from my university. We have a working demo that shows a synchronized car racing game. Ideally, to present our demo I need at least two Macs: I can make our demo run on all machines and show the effect of synchronization. However, I have only one Mac - my laptop. So I came up with a solution: to run multiple instances of our demo software on my laptop. I tested it and it worked fine. Although it's networking on the same machine, it is still networking. But the problem is: Lion would only give me one active window at a time. I can switch between windows of couse, but only the currently active window would update, other windows just remain static. To show a synchronized game, I need multiple windows to be active - I want the multiple demo windows to update simultaneously, as if they were on different machines.

To re-state my question: I want to place, say four windows on my screen and I want all of them to be active windows. Is that possible at all on Lion?

Although it doesn't work with all of the applications, you could use the flag -n for the Terminal's open command.

  -n  Open a new instance of the application(s) even if one is already running.


Differences migrating using Target Mode vs Migration Assistant on source machine? What are the differences between using Target Mode and Migration Assistant on the source machine during a migration? Are different files transferred; is speed (all else being equal) different?

Assume for simplicity a Mavericks-Mavericks migration.

If by Target Mode you mean loading the HD of the old computer onto the new computer and drag-dropping files, then the difference is that Migration Assistant knows what it is doing.

You could have done this in the old Mac OS Classic days, but now there are tons of hidden files and locations that you would never remember to transfer over.

You should really use the migration assistant unless you have a good reason not to.


Add Folder to Finder Favorites using Terminal I'm not sure whether this is actually possible or not but I'm trying to add a newly created folder into the favorites section of the Finder window.

If it is possible how can I achieve this? I have googled for this but couldn't find anything concrete. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

The information about what appears in the Favorites section of the finder windows is kept in the configuration file:

/home/<your_user_name_here>/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

there is an explanation of the file's contents here:
https://georgegarside.com/blog/macos/finder-sidebar-preferences-location/

and macOS includes a tool to manipulate the plists from terminal:
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy

You can find an introduction to the tool here:
http://fgimian.github.io/blog/2015/06/27/a-simple-plistbuddy-tutorial/

and a sample discussion about using it here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/macenterprise/Ks-zHlY3h5I

However, if you don't want to figure out everything by yourself you can use an utility published on github that manages the sidebar contents from the terminal line:

https://github.com/mosen/mysides

OTH

Navigate to the parent of your newly created folder (cd ..) and run open .
Your newly created folder should appear in Finder. Select it, press File -> Add to sidebar. Your folder is now present on the Favourites column


Hard wired link between webcam and led indicator? In light of stories about stories about secret monitoring over laptop webcams (such as this one or this one), I wonder about the reliability of the green LED next to the camera that indicates that it's in use.

Is there a known hard-wired link between the camera on a MacBook Pro and the indicator that is impossible to circumvent in software?

Would such a thing be possible given the hardware of the camera?

I just read another article about that on Ars Technica

Yes the LED is hardwired
But it can still be bypassed

Only downside of this article, it was only tested on "old" (late PPC, early Intel) macs.

Correct. It is not possible for someone to disable this. When the logic board or LCD panel fail, or sometimes after a severe power outage, this light can get stuck on, requiring hardware service, or a reset of certain components. Keep the tape if you like, but the techs will knowingly shake their head and chuckle.


Changing desktop background in OS X 10.8 only changes it for the current desktop space I'm experiencing  a bug in Mountain Lion. I have 2 desktop spaces open. When I change the desktop background picture, it only changes for one of the spaces and not the other. Rebooting solved the problem.

Is this a bug? If so what is causing it? Is there any way to change the behaviour?

Seems like if you set the first desktop to the picture you want and then go to each space and right click on the desktop and select "Change Desktop Background" it changes that desktop's background to the background of Desktop 1.

YMMV: This in  10.8.1, pretty sure it wasn't like that before (in 10.8).

Open up System Preferences. Click on "Desktop & Screen Saver." Then click the picture at the top left. This is the default desktop background. Select whatever pic you want to be the background and that should solve your problem.


Can't partition new SSD I got a new SanDisk SSD for my MBP and can't get El Capitan installed. Whenever I try to partition the SSD from within Disk Utility of my bootable USB (or format it via Erase), the process gets stuck and reports either the same error as here or gets stuck at 50% as described here.

I tried the approaches of the replies in those posts. I created a bootable ubuntu USB and used gparted to format the SSD to gpt first and then to fat32, HSF+, Ext3 hoping that it would allow me to erase the SSD back in Disk Utility. None of these worked out. (Formatting with gparted works, but erasing with Disk Utility afterwards still doesn't)

Gparted from within ubuntu reports The primary GPT table is corrupt, but the backup appears OK, so that will be used and I remember I tried to fix it via Terminal. The same error still pops up whenever I start gparted so I guess I failed.

When I use gpt from within the El Capitan USB it shows me unable to open device '/dev/disk0': I/O error.

Trying to partition the disk via command line (diskutil partitionDisk ...) also gets stuck at 50% as described above.

These are only a few approaches I've tried and which I can remember. I've been googling for quite some time now and don't really know what else to try. I also don't know if this is a problem with my MBP/OS X or the SSD and if I just should return it and get another one. Sometimes when I reboot it happens that the SSD is not displayed/found when using Disk Utility.

I would really appreciate any help on this.

in order to install ElCapitan, you have to format to GUID Partition Table, and Mac OS Extended (journaled), nothing else.


Making the auto-hidden menu bar show up faster I have recently switched back to Mac after Linux Mint and there is one thing I find very cumbersome:

In fullscreen mode the menu bar at the top goes into auto-hide mode, so it animatedly rolls down when I pull the mouse up to the top. My issue is that, this happens pretty slow. There is a 0.5s delay and then the animation starts to roll the menu bar down. I know it doesn't sound a lot but in practice it gets annoying when I multitask and trying get tasks done fast.

Is there a way to remove the delay and trigger the animation instantaneously?
Also, is there way to make the animation faster, or perhaps disable it?

Yosemite 10.10.04

There appears to be no easy way to do this.

In previous versions of OS X, the preference com.apple.springing.delay controlled these timings, but setting this no longer affects the menu timeout on Yosemite (at least not for me).

The keyboard shortcut Ctrl - Fn - F2 pulls down the menubar immediately and focusses it so you can use the keyboard to select menu items (e.g. then press E to select the Edit menu; hit 'Enter' to pull down the menu, then press F to select Find, and Enter to activate). Switching to keyboard shortcuts can improve productivity because your mouse can then stay with the action in the middle of the screen.

Alternatively, commercial software Moom should do what you want.

If you were truly concerned with "trying get tasks done fast", you wouldn't be autohiding the menu bar in the first place!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law


How do install OS X El Capitan onto a VM I am spinning up a VM to do some ruby development. At this point I am trying to install OS X 10.11 to it. I have looked into several ways, but they are not working because I have a bad network connection. How is this done?

Here is one link that I looked at: OS X on OS X

Preface:

This how-to targets VirtualBox because the OP uses it. I strongly recommend to purchase Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion though. A lot of features like drag-and-drop, change the monitor resolution etc. don't work properly in VirtualBox (or I don't get it to work).

The installation of El Capitan is a dual-stage process. You first have to create a Yosemite VM and then update to El Capitan.

The script below apparently doesn't work with El Capitan. A "bootable" El Capitan iso boots to an EFI command line only. The intermediate step of creating a Yosemite.iso seems to be inevitable.

Download the latest VirtualBox installer, the latest Yosemite installer and the latest El Capitan installer.
Install VirtualBox
Use the following shell script to create a bootable Yosemite.iso. The script assumes that Install OS X Yosemite.app was downloaded to the folder /Applications.

 #!/bin/bash

 # Create bootable Yosemite ISO

 # Mount the installer image
 hdiutil attach /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/install_app

 # Convert the boot image to a sparse bundle
 hdiutil convert /Volumes/install_app/BaseSystem.dmg -format UDSP -o /tmp/Yosemite

 # Increase the sparse bundle capacity to accommodate the packages
 hdiutil resize -size 8g /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage

 # Mount the sparse bundle for package addition
 hdiutil attach /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/install_build

 # Remove Package link and replace with actual files
 rm /Volumes/install_build/System/Installation/Packages
 cp -rp /Volumes/install_app/Packages /Volumes/install_build/System/Installation/

 # Copy Base System
 cp -rp /Volumes/install_app/BaseSystem.dmg /Volumes/install_build/
 cp -rp /Volumes/install_app/BaseSystem.chunklist /Volumes/install_build/

 # Unmount the installer image
 hdiutil detach /Volumes/install_app

 # Unmount the sparse bundle
 hdiutil detach /Volumes/install_build

 # Resize the partition in the sparse bundle to remove any free space
 hdiutil resize -size `hdiutil resize -limits /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage | tail -n 1 | awk '{ print $1 }'`b /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage

 # Convert the sparse bundle to ISO/CD master
 hdiutil convert /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage -format UDTO -o /tmp/Yosemite

 # Remove the sparse bundle
 rm /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage

 # Rename the ISO and move it to the desktop
 mv /tmp/Yosemite.cdr ~/Desktop/Yosemite.iso

Copy the above lines, paste it into a new document prepare_yosemite_iso.sh on your desktop with a decent editor (below I use nano) and make it executable. In Terminal enter:

touch ~/Desktop/prepare_yosemite_iso.sh
nano ~/Desktop/prepare_yosemite_iso.sh #paste the content of the script here, save the file to disk with ctrl-O and quit nano with ctrl-X
chmod +x ~/Desktop/prepare_yosemite_iso.sh

execute the script:

~/Desktop/prepare_yosemite_iso.sh

After several minutes the iso with the name Yosemite.iso will be moved to your desktop.
Start VirtualBox and create a new Yosemite VM with the default settings.
If your Mac contains a Haswell processor you have to change the the cpuid in the VM. Enter the following in Terminal:

VBoxManage list vms #to list all available VMs
VBoxManage modifyvm <name_of_vm> --cpuidset 00000001 000306a9 00020800 80000201 178bfbff

Attach Yosemite.iso to the optical drive
Boot the VM, format the hdd, then install and configure Yosemite.
Copy the downloaded Install OS X El Capitan.app to the Applications folder in the VM. Use a network share on the host to accomplish that.
Start Install OS X El Capitan.app and update the VM to El Capitan.
To enable some screen resolutions shut down the VM and enter in (the host's) Terminal:

VBoxManage setextradata <name_of_vm> VBoxInternal2/EfiGopMode N

where N can be one of 0,1,2,3,4,5 referring to the 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1440x900, 1920x1200  screen resolution respectively
Do Ruby development...

It is very easy to install all the Mac OS versions like Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan on VMware workstations 11.
Due to lengthy tutorial, I suggest you to read the complete article from here.
Feel free to ask me any question if you face problem during installation.


What does Health's "Show All Data do? When I choose "Show All Data" from an activity in Health (iOS 8.1), I see a long list of data points with associated source app icons; but this list almost always seems to be incomplete and not to correspond to the data displayed in the dashboard.

For example when I choose "Walking + Running Distance", I see a bunch of data from "Phone", but none from recent days (the most recent entry is over a week old; today is Oct 21)

despite recent walks being recorded correctly in the dashboard ("Today" is Oct 21),

and despite the fact that those walks are from a different source (which I can confirm by choosing "Share Data" in the activity and selecting the source).

Is "Show All Data" not working properly? Is there a setting I need to adjust to get it to actually show all data?

it looks like Show All Data from the device is showing frequent short distance movements instead of the aggregated time and distance that Cyclemeter reports.

The Health app must be doing some kind of interpolation as well as merging or ignoring duplicates from the many data sets and points to generate the graph on the Dashboard.

also, checkout this answer.

Basically, Health app is borked, and has been for over 4 months, as a quick web search under 'health data missing' will speedily reveal. Apple seem to be ignoring the issue. I suggest we waste no more time on it.
Devi


Does the Health App in iOS sync intraday to iCloud? I'm doing a Corporate Challenge where I count all my steps every day and enter them into a website.

The other day I had backed up my phone the night before, and had a problem with it that meant it had to be replaced. When I restored my phone, all my steps for the day I had the defect had been lost.

All my data for other apps that sync with iCloud was preserved for that day. (Things, Tweetbot etc).

My question is: Does the Health App in iOS sync intraday to iCloud?

Edit: This is different to the other question that is similar because I'm asking about intraday app sync, not daily device backups.

Your Health data is backed up to iCloud as part of your device's backup. (Your device backup includes data stored on your phone by apps, your Settings, the layout of your home screen, etc.)

I'm guessing you have iCloud set up to automatically back up your device each day, which it typically does each night when you're at home connected to Wi-Fi. So when you restored your phone, the iCloud backup you restored from probably had all your Health data up to about the end of the previous day.

This is different from how other apps sync with iCloud. When you (e.g.) create a new task in Things, the Things app probably saves that data to iCloud right away so that you can see it on your other devices, etc. So unlike your device backup, which was only current up to the previous night, your other apps/services that use iCloud were probably current up to the moment you experienced your problem.

It doesn't sync to iCloud, but if you do an encrypted iTunes backup it will save that data.


iPhone can't verify CalDAV account I am using Google Calendar and I would like to sync it with my iPhone. Usually, the best way to do this is via setting up a CalDAV account which I've been successfully doing for a while.

However, recently, the syncing has ceased to work. So have I subsequently deleted and re-added the account to my iPhone, but I keep on getting an error message, that the CalDAV account cannot be verified.

Does anybody have any suggestions what I can do about this? I'm absolutely certain the all the data I enter is correct.

The answers provided helped me resolve my CardDAV verification issue.  Here are the exact steps I took:

Sign in to your Google Account at:   https://myaccount.google.com/
In the Sign-in & Security section select:  ‘Signing in to Google’
Select ‘App Passwords’
From the dropdowns:  Select the app (contacts) and the device (iphone)
Follow the instructions in the pop-up to enter the verification code as the password for your google account on your phone.

I have IOS 11.4.

fixed issue by removing google profile certificate


Window too large when moved to second display When I move a window from a larger display to a smaller display, sometimes it's so large that the bottom right hand corner is outside the display, meaning that I can't easily resize it.

What can I do about this situation?

Try adding in a Keyboard Shortcut using system preferences. I have mine to execute the Zoom option located under the Window tab at the top of most browsers and applications. I changed the Command + Return + Shift from the default to my new shortcut zoom.

This will resize the window to fit the screen and if a different/smaller screen size is desired, you can easily resize it using the corners from here.

It is actually much easier to resize from this resized/"Zoomed" window because moving your mouse to any of the computer screen's edges will place you directly over the edge of the window allowing you do resize the screen without mis-clicking (example of mis-clicking: causing another window/application to become active or moving the position/orientation of the window altogether).

Just add in the application you want this shortcut to work for under the App Shortcuts option within the "Keyboard" -> "Shortcuts" sections of system preferences.

As long as any part of the top of the window is visible, then the following will work:

Hold down "Shift" while double-clicking then the window's title bar.
This will resize the window to fit your screen.

Most apps will also resize their window to fit your screen if you double-click anywhere on the top bar (title bar).


Game Center corruption. How to fix? Lately I'm finding that I am not able to use any software that utilizes Game Center. In iOS 6 on login (or opening any game) it says, "Could not connect to Game Center server." In OS X Mountain Lion on login, it says, "The data couldn’t be read because it has been corrupted."

I've tried some steps to fix that were suggested in Apple's Support Discussions without success. These include rebuilding permissions, resetting PRAM, restoring the /etc/hosts file to its default state, and in OS X, logging in using Chess instead of Game Center.

That this is happening on both of my devices (MacBook Pro and iPhone 4S) makes me think the 'corruption' is occurring on Apple end, in the cloud. I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this issue and conquered it, or if Apple Support can do anything to restore this functionality on their end at a customer's request.

I'm thinking that the server just must be down. I'm having the same issues logging into my game center on my iphone 4s. Perhaps it will fix itself within the hour as things like this apparently have happened before.

Restore or reboot the device to fix this issue


Can't erase unmountable external HD My external HD isn't mounted and can't be repaired by Disk Utility. However, I'm also unable erase the disk:

$ diskutil list disk2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Everest                 4.0 TB     disk2s2

$ diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk2s2
Started file system repair on disk2s2 Everest
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required
Error: -69673: Unable to unmount volume for repair

$ diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Everest /dev/disk2
Started erase on disk2
Unmounting disk
Error: -69888: Couldn't unmount disk

You can try entering in Single User Mode and do an fsck on the hard drive.

To enter single user mode, turn on your computer and immediately after press the Command s. This will load you to a terminal looking screen. Let it run its pre-checks.

After it is done there should be two commands to run:

a command to mount the drive
a command to run fsck on the drive.

Do the fsck first. This will make sure that at least the hierarchy of the OS file system is ok. Use the mount command just to see if you can mount the Drive.

If it fails, there could be a hardware issue, a cable or failing hard drive. If it does not fail and passes everything, reboot. See if it works normally.

I believe the following command is for the fsck

/sbin/fsck -fy

and the following for mounting

/sbin/mount -uw /

Single user mode will display the correct commands.

Once you are done with Single User mode type reboot and hit Return

And this will boot you up normally.

Disable Spotlight for that disk (System Preferences)


OSX “Microsoft Remote Desktop (MSRD)” redefine shortcut not works Typically on OSX remaping of keyboard shortcuts works well.

In "Microsoft Remote Desktop (MSRD)" it works well too but previous keystrokes still exist:

OSX > System Preferences > Keyboard > App Shortcuts > Add
Application: "Microsoft Remote Desktop"
Menu Title: "Close Connection"
Keyboard Shortcut: "Alt+Shift+W"

I can close with Alt+Shift+W and also with the default Cmd+W.

This is not OSX default behaviour so I think it is BUG.

Does anybody have a solution?

I think it's a bug too.

As it has 2 versions of Close, both Close Connection & just Close [when there's no window open] I thought adding both those as key commands would do it - but no,  Cmd ⌘   W   still closes the connection.

It's likely a bug as I can confirm that this is working in MSRD beta version. https://rink.hockeyapp.net/apps/5e0c144289a51fca2d3bfa39ce7f2b06/


How can I resize OS X 10.7 Lion display screen resolution during install? I have a Mac Mini (2011) with no OS installed currently (drives are RAIDed and I lost Recovery HD partition).

When I boot, I start the Internet Recovery, which I am viewing through a Samsung P50 Plasma TV. The max. resolution of the TV is 1366x768 pixel.
After Recovery begins, it tries to open the installer with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixel and won't let me access some parts of the screen. Unfortunately, that also includes the "Continue" button and progress bar to install Lion.

Is there any way I can force a smaller resolution or get the window to move, so I can start the installation?

Ran into the same issue.  Followed YouTube video of installation in order to figure out the following:

Once the disc is booted, select Reinstall OS X.  You will then reach the screen where you cannot see the Continue button.  Using your keyboard, press TAB followed by SPACE.  You should then reach the User Agreement screen.  Press TAB, TAB, TAB and SPACE.  Click the Agree button which should be visible.  Click the installation drive and press TAB, TAB and SPACE.

This should get you to the point where Lion is installing.

Try holding down the shift key during boot. It works for some displays, but maybe not your TV.


`open http://foo.com` and specify the chrome user which is to be used Using the open command from terminal I would like to be able to specify the chrome the specific chrome user to open the url with?  Local Chrome users are outlined here.

Essentially I have a local chrome user which I use for testing but the user which the local Chrome user which link opens with is the user which has the last selected window and
jumping back and forth between chrome and the terminal often the link I am opening for testing end up opening in the chrome user which I use for practical purposes (not testing).

Have you tried open http://user@foo.com and edit the question based on what error or success results from this step?


Command + C does not always work from the first try in Microsoft Word (Office 2011) I have no idea why COMMAND + C doesn't always register from the first time. I sometimes try to copy something off Word, but I have to press COMMAND + C more than once for it to register, otherwise COMMAND + C just prints what was copied in clipboard before. This becomes very irritating.

However I realised that if I press COMMAND then pause for a second, THEN press C, the command always registers.

EDIT

I noticed that when I select any text in word, it takes about a second for the Cut and Copy buttons to be highlighted (otherwise they're greyed out). And THIS has direct effect on this problem. Only when they are not greyed out anymore can I copy and paste using keyboard shortcuts correctly.

What is happening ?

This issue is real and I think every mac user experience it on a weekly basis, but likely people continue to doubt themselves over if they actually command c or not properly.
The fix. If you are using Karabiner like real hacker should:
Just add this to your karabiner complex configurations:
[
    {
        "from": {
            "key_code": "c",
            "modifiers": {
                "mandatory": [
                    "left_command"
                ]
            }
        },
        "to": [
            {
                "key_code": "c",
                "modifiers": [
                    "left_command"
                ]
            },
            {
                "key_code": "c",
                "modifiers": [
                    "left_command"
                ]
            },
            {
                "key_code": "c",
                "modifiers": [
                    "left_command"
                ]
            }
        ],
        "type": "basic"
    }
]

Now that should make the copy flash a few times in the menu.
You can increase or decrease as much as you want. Personally I have a few more.


How to get Java applets working with Chrome? I use Gotomypc which is either a Java applet or an App.

The Gotomypc applet will launch under Firefox or Safari but not Chrome. When I launch the app under chrome I get the yellow status bar at the top that says:

"Java is required for some elements on this page".

When I click the install button it simply takes me to this generic page http://java.com/en/download/apple_manual.jsp

How to get Java applets working with Chrome?

Currently, on a 64-bit Mac (such as >=10.8) with Java 7 you cannot use Java Applets in Chrome.

Java 7 is 64 bit only, and as such requires a 64 bit browser. Chrome on Mac is currently only 32 bit.

The Chrome/Chromium developers have a bug to show progress, although actual work seems to have stalled for some reason.: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=115774

If you wish to use an older version that will work (not recommended due to security issues) you can follow these steps, assuming you still have java 6 installed: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5559 (summarised below)

sudo mkdir -p /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/disabled
sudo mv /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/disabled
sudo ln -sf /System/Library/Java/Support/Deploy.bundle/Contents/Resources/JavaPlugin2_NPAPI.plugin /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
sudo ln -sf /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Commands/javaws /usr/bin/javaws

To undo these steps

sudo ln -sf /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/javaws /usr/bin/javaws

Followed by downloading the latest Java from Oracle.

Mac OS X has their own Java. You can install it here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5267

After installing it, restart your Chrome and it should be ready to go!


How do I prevent prompts to update to iOS 10 I've got an iPhone 6 that I would like to keep running iOS9 for the purpose of testing iOS applications.  Is there any way to prevent the prompts to install iOS10?

Short answer, No.
Apple really, really, really wants you to upgrade.

Longer answer...
You'd need to be able to block the domains

appldnld.apple.com
mesu.apple.com

on every WiFi access point you meet.

Depending on which version of iOS 9 you have, you could jailbreak the phone - that will prevent the update notifications from coming up again.


Wrong Storage Space in El Capitan I am running OS X EL Capitan (10.11.3) on my MBP and I have been trying to use BootCamp.  Whenever I try to open the Boot Camp Assistant it says you need at least 50 GB free space.  I have deleted many files (emptied the Trash) but the free space remains the same (43 GB).  I have read many solutions,  re-indexed Spotlight search couple of times, and restarted the machine several times.  But the free space is still the same. Can anyone please help me?

File Clearing

As user2277872 mentioned it's probably a good idea to get a disk analysis application to find out what's eating up your disk space. A few good applications to start with are DaisyDisk, OmniDiskSweeper and Disk Inventory X, each available here, here and here respectively.

If you find no big files cluttering up your space, here's another link covering some things that might be using up your disk space that you may have overlooked: http://www.howtogeek.com/184091/5-ways-to-free-up-disk-space-on-a-mac/

Partition Resizing

However, if your 43 available GBs are on your Windows partition, no amount of file deletion on the Mac partition is going to help. What you need to do is resize the partitions.

Disclaimer: it's always a good idea to make a backup. In theory, no data should get deleted but things can always go wrong. Grab an external HDD and image your system onto it, or at least copy your important files over.

Boot into Recovery (Cmd-R on startup) and open Disk Utility.
Select your parent drive for both your Mac and Windows partitions (assuming they're on the same physical disk).
Click the Partition button in the toolbar and resize accordingly. You may want to allocate about 80GB to Windows or more depending on how much you intend to use it.
Click Apply and reboot. You should be able to boot into your Windows partition now.

I think you should check your filled hard disk space using following third party application. With Daisy Disk App you can easily identify the app space in your MBP hard drive.


Mountain Lion displaying graphical artefacts on screen I have a default automatic login account, User A. The Dock renders all it is responsible for (Dock, Launchpad, Mission Control) correctly for User A, but when I Fast User Switch to User B or C or the Guest Account, the Dock process doesn’t render anything properly, as shown in the screenshot.

This doesn’t happen when I disable automatic login and login to either User B, C or Guest on boot.

I did not have this problem on Lion.

If it matters, I have an Sapphire ATI Radeon 5450 HD.

Why is this happening and how do I fix it?

Check for updates through the Mac App Store first just in case Apple may have fixed this (obviously not everyone is experiencing this issue, but they may have anyway).  In the comments of this article about Mountain Lion bugs, many users are expressing the same issue that you are having, and having to logout and back in again to fix this.

Another thing you might try (if you haven't already) is to back up and re-install Mountain Lion.

update Everyone on this thread has the same exact issue. Yes, it is a bug, and yes, the only workaround is to killall Dock. I suggest using an AppleScript with Login Items, launchd, or Lingon (old, free, unsupported version here, and $3 newer, supported version here) to run killall Dock as soon as you log in so that the Dock just restarts itself immediately.  Meanwhile, submit this bug to Apple.

Not much you can do about it, looks like a a driver or hardware bug with your specific video card.

Report it to Apple and wait/hope for them to fix the driver, or find a workaround (if it's a hardware bug).

Alternatively, buy a different video card or downgrade back to Lion.


After downloading file installer process runs and uses all memory When I download a file from the internet a process starts with name "installer" and uses all the available memory until my Mac crashes.

It's not related to the browser — I tested with Chrome and Safari.
The only solution I have is to kill the process from Terminal.

What is installer? How can I delete installer process from my Mac?

I have a 15″ Retina MacBook Pro with 16 GB memory.

I used EasyFind. It located right away all the files and folders matching my research criterias (in that specific case I was looking for "installer")
Deleted it right away.
Worked like a charm!


Trackpad malfunction after last macOS update (Sierra 10.12.3) I am looking for information / help from someone who might experienced similar issue in the past or has knowledge about the problem described below.

During last week I have been experiencing issues with trackpad on MacBook Pro Retina 13' Mid 2014.

It all have started the next day after latest macOS Sierra 10.12.3 update.

Symptoms:

not registering multitouch commands, like thumb + 3 or 4 fingers, swipes
freezes on the movement just to pick up a second later
stops to respond at all
moves and send click signals by itself without touching

Some/all of this happen when I try to use trackpad. When left alone, with external usb mouse plugged in, I can use the software mouse without any issue (using external mouse).

I have tried to fix it with:

Restart
NVRAM reset
SMC reset
macOS reinstallation

sadly, none of above helped.

Valuable Info: Apple Diagnostics tool shows that I have problem with memory (PPM002 error code and potential PPM003 and PPM004). Apple code reference page says nothing more about them but to contact nearest Apple Authorized Service Provider.

I will appreciate any form of help.

And yes... My warranty expired just two weeks ago.

My unrecognized trackpad and keyboard issue fixed after cleaning up desktop. A file was corrupting the start up process.


Add ‘Good News' voice to "Say" commands I recall having 'Good News' and 'Bad News' voices for say commands on my older Mac, but now I don't have these. Where can I get them?

Voices can be downloaded from:

System Preferences... → Accessibility → Speech

Select the System Voice and click Customize...

There You can search for Good or Bad. Voices will be downloaded and will be available in say command as well. I've tested this a moment ago.

With macOS Big Sur 11.3.1, the voices Good News, Bad News and more generally all voices categorised as English (United States)- Novelty are not installed by default, but you need to install them. The complete list of the Novelty voices is :

Albert
Bad News
Bahh
Bells
Boing
Bubbles
Cellos
Deranged
Good News
Hysterical
Pipe Organ
Trinoids
Whisper
Zarvox

To install these, System Preferences > Accessibility. In the left pane, select Spoken content. From the System Voice drop-down menu, you can see the list of already installed voices. You can change here the default voice. Select Customise to add more voices and more languages. You can pre-hear these voices by clicking on the voice name and then clicking the Play button. Once you select new voices, click on OK and they will be downloaded. It might take a few minutes.
For instance, after installing the voice Good News, I can use either commands
say -v Good "i am a geek"
say -v "Good News" "i am a geek"

NB: However, not all the voices listed in Spoken content  are available with the say command. For instance, the voice Siri does not work.
say -v Siri "i am a geek"

Voice `Siri' not found.

say -v "Siri Voice 1" "i am a geek"

Voice `Siri Voice 1' not found.

To get the list of voices available, use the terminal command
say -v'?'

For me it displays :
Alex                en_US    # Most people recognize me by my voice.
Alice               it_IT    # Salve, mi chiamo Alice e sono una voce italiana.
Alva                sv_SE    # Hej, jag heter Alva. Jag är en svensk röst.
Amelie              fr_CA    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Amelie. Je suis une voix canadienne.
Anna                de_DE    # Hallo, ich heiße Anna und ich bin eine deutsche Stimme.
Audrey              fr_FR    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Audrey. Je suis une voix française.
Aurelie             fr_FR    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Aurelie. Je suis une voix française.
Carmit              he_IL    # שלום. קוראים לי כרמית, ואני קול בשפה העברית.
Damayanti           id_ID    # Halo, nama saya Damayanti. Saya berbahasa Indonesia.
Daniel              en_GB    # Hello, my name is Daniel. I am a British-English voice.
Diego               es_AR    # Hola, me llamo Diego y soy una voz española.
Ellen               nl_BE    # Hallo, mijn naam is Ellen. Ik ben een Belgische stem.
Fiona               en-scotland # Hello, my name is Fiona. I am a Scottish-English voice.
Fred                en_US    # I sure like being inside this fancy computer
Ioana               ro_RO    # Bună, mă cheamă Ioana . Sunt o voce românească.
Joana               pt_PT    # Olá, chamo-me Joana e dou voz ao português falado em Portugal.
Jorge               es_ES    # Hola, me llamo Jorge y soy una voz española.
Juan                es_MX    # Hola, me llamo Juan y soy una voz mexicana.
Kanya               th_TH    # สวัสดีค่ะ ดิฉันชื่อKanya
Karen               en_AU    # Hello, my name is Karen. I am an Australian-English voice.
Kate                en_GB    # Hello, my name is Kate. I am a British-English voice.
Kyoko               ja_JP    # こんにちは、私の名前はKyokoです。日本語の音声をお届けします。
Laura               sk_SK    # Ahoj. Volám sa Laura . Som hlas v slovenskom jazyku.
Lekha               hi_IN    # नमस्कार, मेरा नाम लेखा है. मैं हिन्दी में बोलने वाली आवाज़ हूँ.
Luca                it_IT    # Salve, mi chiamo Luca e sono una voce italiana.
Luciana             pt_BR    # Olá, o meu nome é Luciana e a minha voz corresponde ao português que é falado no Brasil
Maged               ar_SA    # مرحبًا اسمي Maged. أنا عربي من السعودية.
Mariska             hu_HU    # Üdvözlöm! Mariska vagyok. Én vagyok a magyar hang.
Mei-Jia             zh_TW    # 您好，我叫美佳。我說國語。
Melina              el_GR    # Γεια σας, ονομάζομαι Melina. Είμαι μια ελληνική φωνή.
Milena              ru_RU    # Здравствуйте, меня зовут Milena. Я – русский голос системы.
Moira               en_IE    # Hello, my name is Moira. I am an Irish-English voice.
Monica              es_ES    # Hola, me llamo Monica y soy una voz española.
Nora                nb_NO    # Hei, jeg heter Nora. Jeg er en norsk stemme.
Paulina             es_MX    # Hola, me llamo Paulina y soy una voz mexicana.
Rishi               en_IN    # Hello, my name is Rishi. I am an Indian-English voice.
Samantha            en_US    # Hello, my name is Samantha. I am an American-English voice.
Sara                da_DK    # Hej, jeg hedder Sara. Jeg er en dansk stemme.
Satu                fi_FI    # Hei, minun nimeni on Satu. Olen suomalainen ääni.
Serena              en_GB    # Hello, my name is Serena. I am a British-English voice.
Sin-ji              zh_HK    # 您好，我叫 Sin-ji。我講廣東話。
Tessa               en_ZA    # Hello, my name is Tessa. I am a South African-English voice.
Thomas              fr_FR    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Thomas. Je suis une voix française.
Ting-Ting           zh_CN    # 您好，我叫Ting-Ting。我讲中文普通话。
Veena               en_IN    # Hello, my name is Veena. I am an Indian-English voice.
Victoria            en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Xander              nl_NL    # Hallo, mijn naam is Xander. Ik ben een Nederlandse stem.
Yelda               tr_TR    # Merhaba, benim adım Yelda. Ben Türkçe bir sesim.
Yuna                ko_KR    # 안녕하세요. 제 이름은 Yuna입니다. 저는 한국어 음성입니다.
Yuri                ru_RU    # Здравствуйте, меня зовут Yuri. Я – русский голос системы.
Zosia               pl_PL    # Witaj. Mam na imię Zosia, jestem głosem kobiecym dla języka polskiego.
Zuzana              cs_CZ    # Dobrý den, jmenuji se Zuzana. Jsem český hlas.

(partially taken from https://maithegeek.medium.com/having-fun-in-macos-with-say-command-d4a0d3319668)


How to reformat and re-install an old G5 I was given an old G5, and the existing installed OS is locked, and I don't have the password. I don't care about erasing its whole content. I have a bunch of CDs, and I want to know how can I restart this machine so it boots from the CD and reformat the whole system. I am very new to MAC world.

I realise this is a MAC 101 question type, but I need to start somewhere......

Thanks :-)

You can restart while holding down the C key to boot from a valid Mac OS X Install CD / DVD for that G5 based Mac. To pick and choose what disk your machine can boot from hold down the option key while starting the Mac.

Also depending on which version of Mac OS X is installed there are different ways to reset the password in single user mode. This may be an option for you if you just want to  unlock and add / remove users and you have a startup CD/DVD for that Mac.

See  Changing or resetting an account password for some instructions on how to reset the password.

Do we have a FAQ? This should be on it.
Have a look at : http://www.theinstructional.com/guides/how-to-re-run-the-os-x-setup-assistant
That'll give you working login for the system and you can start your repairs from there.


How do I make Apple Script open Script Editor and write a new script? I have tried to do

tell application "Script Editor"
    make new script with properties {name:"this is a test", body:"and
    more text"}
end tell

but it came up with the error

'error "Script Editor got an error: Can’t make class file." number -2710 from file to class"

This works for me:

tell application "Script Editor"
    make new document with properties {name:"this is a test", contents:"and
more text"}
end tell

I think you need to change the "Script Editor to a different application

tell application "Script Editor"
    make new script with properties {name:"this is a test", body:"and
    more text"}
end tell


How can I see traffic from shared Wifi (Macbook AirPort)? I want to see a log.  Something like: 192.168.0.23 www.example.url 13:34 19 april 2011

tcpdump is a command-line utility to see the traffic on any network interface.  It is full-featured, but can require some serious reading of the man page.

Wireshark is a full-featured application that will allow you to see all such traffic.  It provides a GUI (X-windows based) into which you can specify filters on traffic and collect statistics.  See more info and download it at wireshark.org.  I find knowledge of Wireshark to be very, very helpful with lots of network tasks.

Debookee will do the job for the following protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, DHCP, SIP ...

There's also a scanner included that can show you all the devices on your network.

But the best to me is the interceptor tool that allows you to see the traffic of any device (mobile, tablet, other Mac or PC) on your network, like Cain & Abel for Windows.


How to bypass Touch ID provided access to the iCloud account? If a user has Touch ID on. Then he loses his finger, or dies. How to unlock the phone? Provided he or his family know the iCloud password.

Since you have the iPhone password you can unlock the iPhone.

Without the iPhone password (or the finger...) (even if you have the Apple ID password) you will not be able gain access to the phone. You can however wipe the phone and use the Apple ID to unlock the phone from Activation Lock.

Since you have both you can you can wipe the phone and start from new.

Since Touch ID password is stored on local device. And every device is allowed to enabled for 10 finger by default, it is recommended to have one of the family member for enabling of Touch ID. But if iOS device passcode is aware, then in that case will be able to login into iOS device and add new finger for enabling Touch ID.


too late to get mavericks? I'm on an older imac on SnowLeopard and didn't upgrade as was happy with the OS and heard there were bugs with Lion etc.

I didn't realise Mavericks was going to disappear from the app store. I'm not sure if many of my apps like CS5 are going to be compatible with Yosemite, and I only have 4GB of RAM.

Is there any way to get mavericks now? Or am I too late?

OS X Mavericks is not legally available (via the Mac App Store) anymore. Sharing it is not allowed.

Edit: just remembered that I needed it too a could of months ago and I called Apple. They said 'it might be available in the future'.

It is too late to download Mavericks from the Mac App Store, but if you can find someone you know that has purchased Mavericks in the App Store they can still download it. If not, I'm sure you would be able to find a copy online somewhere from a less legitimate source.


cmd-tab behavior on Mavericks with multiple displays I have a MacBook with Cinema Display, I have my dock on the MacBook screen side and my menubar is set to Cinema Display. In 10.8 this worked well, when I pressed cmd-tab to switch apps the task switcher would come up on the "main" Cinema Display.

In 10.9, however, it's always on the MacBook's screen, very annoying. Is there a setting I've missed?

I believe this coincides with the Dock's location.  Just tested it on my MacBook Air, connected to a non-Apple external display, and whenever I moved the Dock from screen to screen the Application Switcher would follow.

You can summon the Dock on your big display by dragging the cursor to the bottom of it's display, essentially dragging down at the bottom.  After a second the Dock should pop up.  Once the Dock is on the desired display press commandtab to summon the Application Switcher.

You can also display the app switcher on all monitors with the following undocumented preference:
defaults write com.apple.dock appswitcher-all-displays -bool true
killall Dock

This works on Big Sur, Catalina, and possibly older versions as well.


Streaming music paid app I am getting really annoyed by the number of ads that I get in Pandora and am considering shelling out $36 for the paid version.

Are there other streaming music iPhone apps that I can review before I make a purchase?

This will be used in USA.

You can download and try Mog and Rdio for two weeks a piece.  They both also provide Desktop streaming as well.  I've tried both and prefer Mog.

You  could go spotify or soundcloud i dont know but soundcloud have a deal on there where if you pay 5.99 i dont know how much they change it in the us but


banner - horizontal text On my Linux box, if I do banner message I get a horizontal banner saying "banner".

However, on my Mac I get a vertical banner. How do you revert this to horizontal?

The default banner on macOS does not have any option to change orientation.

However, figlet is available in Homebrew:

  brew install figlet

Since it's a banner, by default prints vertically, in larger characters, visible from afar in landscape page setup, without having to setup printer to print in landscape. You may change the size of print with "-w" flag.

Orientation may be changed with a text editor or in printer page setup before printing.

If you wanted to display banner horizontally on monitor, then you may rotate the monitor display either physically, or via display properties described here:

https://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/589248-screen-rotation-option-is-not-available-on-mac-os


How to resize Macintosh HD? In my disk utilty, I have some unused space left over.

I want to resize Macintosh HD to use this space.

Whats the best way to resize Macintosh HD? Disk Utility won't let me resize it whether I'm live resizing from the tool running on my Mountain Lion install or if I boot into Recovery HD so the OS isn't running.

Here is a screenshot of my Disk Utility window currently

Please please make sure that you type in the correct partitions. Double-check and triple check before running the merge command. It’s really important that you backup all of your data. I’m not taking any responsibility if you manage to erase anything. You will not want to lose data if there’s a sudden loss of power mid-operation.

In Disk Utility, create a new partition from the unused space.
Open terminal.app, and from there you’ll run diskutil mergePartitions

First you need to find out which partitions you’ll want to merge:

disktuil list

And hopefully you’ll see something like this:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            499.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                 50.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s4

You’ll want to merge disk0s2 with disk0s3. So you’d run something like this:

diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ DiskName disk0s2 disk0s3

Beware that the above will merge partitions between disk0s2 and disk0s3. Data on disk0s2 is preserved, data on all the partitions in-between is erased. In my example the two partitions are contiguous so there’s no problem. But if your recovery partition is in between it will be erased.

If you need help with the mergePartitions command:

  Usage:  diskutil mergePartitions [force] format name
          DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode

  Merge two or more pre-existing partitions into one.  The first disk
  parameter is the starting partition; the second disk parameter is the
  ending partition; this given range of two or more partitions will be
  merged into one.

  All partitions in the range, except for the first one, must be
  unmountable.

  All data on merged partitions other than the first will be lost; data
  on the first partition will be lost as well if the "force" argument is
  given.

  If "force" is not given, and the first partition has a resizable file
  system (e.g. JHFS+), it will be grown in a data-preserving manner,
  even if a different file system is specified (in fact, your file
  system and volume name parameters are both ignored in this case). If
  "force" is not given, and the first partition is not resizable, you
  will be prompted if you want to erase.

  If "force" is given, the first partition is always formatted. You
  should do this if you wish to reformat to a new file system type.

  Merged partitions are required to be ordered sequentially on disk. See
  diskutil list for the actual on-disk ordering; BSD slice identifiers
  may in certain circumstances not always be in numerical order but the
  top-to-bottom order given by diskutil list is always the on-disk
  order.

  Ownership of the affected disk is required.

  Example: diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ NewName disk3s4 disk3s7
           This example will merge all partitions BETWEEN disk3s4 and disk3s7,
           preserving data on disk3s4 but destroying data on disk3s5, disk3s6,
           disk3s7 and any invisible free space partitions between those disks;
           disk3s4 will be grown to cover the full space if possible.

You can't resize an existing partition in Disk Utility. Your only options are

Create a separate partition to make use of the unused space.
Copy all your data to a backup drive, then erase and repartition the disk, then move your data back (when reformatting, be sure to select the drive, not just the existing named partition, or you will end up with the same unused disk space).


How does my iPhone change time zones automatically? I'm curious how my iPhone knows what time zone I am in and change automatically. Does the phone use GPS to figure out where I am in the world? Or is there some other technology in play here.

It uses a combination of GPS and the date/time sent to the iPhone from the cell towers.

There's several questions here about this same topic (different carriers and different iPhones) and they all have very similar responses to what I've said.  If you search for this topic, you can see all the different questions and answers; I just combined them all.

It is a SMART PHONE. (  as smart as the person using it. Meaning it has the capacity to do astounding things if you learn how to use it. )  You can use the settings function to set the phone to the time zone you are in and tell it to update automatically or manual. You can set it to a new time zone when you travel.

Settings> general > date and time

if the phone knows what time zone it is in then it know what time it is in that time zone. If you set it to alaska time but you are in new york it will give you the time in alaska ( because you told it is in alaska). If it is set to not set automaticly.


Mac App Store and multiple OS partitions I recently set up an additional Lion partition in addition to my existing partition for development reasons.

I was in the process of installing apps on this new volume through the Mac App Store, when I realized that it would not let me install apps that I had installed on the older partition.

For instance, when I was trying to install Twitter.app, since it exists on my older partition, the App Store lists it as "Installed". This prevents me from installing it on my new partition.

Is there a hidden preference that would limit the App Store to only search the boot volume for installed apps? Is there a better way to manage installations across multiple volumes using the App Store?

At present the app isn't set up to restrict its spotlight search to any specific volume. That behavior falls as a natural consequence of "the Mac way"  of letting an app reside anywhere and still run.

You can use disk utility to unmount that volume when it's time to install or update as a workaround.

How about deleting the package receipt that tells the system the app is installed? The receipts for everything you have installed on your machine are in (root directly) OS > Library > Receipts.


MacBook Pro won't shutdown My MacBook Pro seemed to get hung up in Chrome. Was able to quit Chrome and all other apps running (Mail and TextEdit) and tried to restart. Screen went black, trackpad still moving cursor but didn't restart. Tried to force it by holding down power button but now it won't shut down either. Also tried command-option-eject with no effect. Can't get to Apple Store until tomorrow. Aside from waiting/hoping for battery to drain is there any other way I can force it to shutdown or restart.

Sounds like your SMC is broken.

As last resort I would remove the battery.


How do I enable "mouse trails" in OSX? I have a lot of screen real estate, and am constantly "losing" my mouse.

I'd like to have a simple way of easily finding the mouse that doesn't have to be reconfigured when I undock from my 28 inch monitor and rely on my retina display.

Windows has a feature that allows for "mouse trails" so I can easily find the pointer wherever it is.  How can I get similar functionality on the Mac?

I looked under the "accessibility" tab but found nothing.

There's no built-in option for that. You could try HotMouse for $0.99 in the App Store, or OmniDazzle (free) if you're really feeling crazy.


How to star-rate "Apple Music" files in iTunes on OS X I like rating music as I'm listening to it so I can find my favorite stuff easily later.  But I'm now an Apple Music subscriber and listening to a LOT of new music that the service has found for me.  Unfortunately those streamed songs, don't appear to allow star ratings!  They only allow a "heart" rating.

But here's the weird part.  I discovered that you CAN see the star ratings if you right-click an Apple Music song and Get Info on it.  BUT, you cannot actually edit the rating, it's disabled.

But here's the weirder part.  If you select MULTIPLE files at once (at least two), then you CAN edit the star ratings!

So, is this a bug?  An intended feature?  Is there some other way to actually star-rate a single Apple Music streamed song?

I've had several people ask for help with Apple Music and this has helped them - hopefully it's what you're looking for.

Stars are tracked in your music library - so if you are playing songs from the cloud - it's a bug if you can input stars for tracks that are not part of your actual library.

One you add a song/album to your library - the stars should be there for you to rate things.

Hearts are tracked in the cloud - so you should always be able to use that control whether you are streaming a radio song that's not even in Apple Music for download, streaming Apple Music or playing a song that's in your library due to purchase, rip, or music addition.

it seems once you've downloaded the song you can give it a star rating


How to activate Apple Storage I am paying for 50 GB of icloud storage. It shows up in my settings, but I can't access it. I am still deleting photos so I can store everything on the 5 GB I have. Have spent hours researching this but can only find others with the same problem. No answers from Apple.

I would logout of iCloud and log back in


Did you have issues using a Microsoft 4000 keyboard with your Mac? When I had a iMac (about 3 years ago), I tried connecting my Microsoft 4000 keyboard to it and I remember that there were some issues with key mappings.

I do like Mac keyboards, but at times I like the more relaxing feel of my 4000.

Is it possible to make the keys match 1:1 so there is no difference between which keys I press for each keyboard?

The only issues I had (on Lion) were with the Microsoft drivers not retaining their settings between reboots. It seems the drivers were vastly improved (no more kernel panics) since you've tried them; see David Röthlisberger's article.

Other than that, I think the ergonomic part is well worth the trouble of getting the 4000 set-up properly. And with KeyRemap4Macbook you can get almost limitless customizability.

this is quite a good fix:
http://calebhicks.com/2016/karabiner-for-sculpt/

worked for me on el capitan


Clear desktop icon cache I wrote two applications which I have on my Desktop which I can't change the icons of.

The first is called was an app I wrote with Automator. After creating it, I was able to change its icon from the default Automator one to the Dock's app icon (as seen in System Preferences). When I installed MacOS 10.13 (High Sierra), the icon changed to the icon depicting my laptop model (MacBook Pro 13" with Touch Bar). I changed the icon back to the Dock. However, the icon change was not visible on the Desktop (though it was in Finder windows and Quick Look).

The other app was written in the programming language Racket (racket-lang.org). I changed the logo from the Racket logo to my laptop (see path above). I am having a similar problem where the icon does not change.

Note that I renamed the new icons to the old icon's name to avoid problems.

For both apps, renaming the file fixed the problem, but I have a Service which runs the app, and renaming it would break the Service. Changing the name to its correct name puts the incorrect icons back in place. I have come to the conclusion that there is some sort of cache that stores the icons. How do I remove or reset this?

You can’t clear or refresh the apple touch icons. Only if the name is changed in the actual website of the icon will Apple look for it again and refresh.

I think you should check this out: https://gist.github.com/fabiofl/5873100
it probably does what you need


How to script brightness turning down and up? I am trying to create a applescript that puts my brightness to the max or minimum, but I don't know how to. I am trying to use this script

    repeat 10 times
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 122
        delay 0.1
    end tell
end repeat

but nothing happens.

Provided the necessary accessibility privileges are granted that permits UI scripting, this script programmatically adjusts the brightness of your screen by way of System Preferences:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
    reveal anchor "displaysDisplayTab" of current pane
end tell

tell application "System Events" to tell ¬
    process "System Preferences" to tell ¬
    window 1 to tell ¬
    tab groups to tell ¬
    groups to tell ¬
    sliders to set its value to 0.5 -- 0.0 to 1.0

quit application "System Preferences"

You can set that value you see to any decimal value between 0.0 (minimum brightness, display off) and 1.0 (maximum brightness).

With your apple script attempt this is possible.

To dim your display to minimum brightness:

repeat 32 times
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 107
    end tell
end repeat

To brighten up your display to maximum brightness:

repeat 32 times
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 113
    end tell
end repeat


Is it safe to delete these 4 files in the folder called dyld The system storage seemed to take you a lot of space so I used this software which gives you a visual depiction of the size of files on your Mac (big files are big squares and so on) and turns out these 4 files in system have randomly inflated, it wasn't like this a few months ago. is it safe to delete these files they're in some folder called dyld. if not then what do I do to clear the system storage because I really need the space rn for some applications.

Is it safe to delete these 4 files in the folder called dyld (/System/Library/dyld/)?

Short answer
No, in Big Sur it's not safe to delete them (from the screenshot in your question, I see you are on Big Sur).
Long answer
In previous macOS versions (at least in macOS 10.15 Catalina, from first-hand experience), these files were located in /var/db/dyld/ and could be recreated with this command (see for example Trying to force update_dyld_shared_cache but having some errors):
sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -root / -force

but update_dyld_shared_cache is deprecated in Big Sur (running the command has as only output This tool is deprecated.).
Furthermore, the files in /System/Library/dyld/ no longer seem to be cache files in the sense that they store commonly used shared libraries (from man update_dyld_shared_cache):

When loading [an executable file], dyld will first check if is in the share cache, and if it is will use that pre-bound version instead of opening, mapping, and binding the original file. This results in significant performance improvements to launch time.

Instead, in Big Sur, the cache files contain most of the macOS libraries.
Let me expand on this: the contents of /var/db/dyld/ (Catalina and earlier macOS versions) and /System/Library/dyld/ (Big Sur) are essentially the same. They both store pairs of files: a text map file (with a .map extension) and a binary shared cache file (without extension), for example:
dyld_shared_cache_x86_64h.map
dyld_shared_cache_x86_64h

The text map file contains information about the shared cache file, and looks like this:
mapping  EX 1331MB 0x7FFF20000000 -> 0x7FFF73398000
mapping  RW  224MB 0x7FFF80000000 -> 0x7FFF8E0C6000
mapping  RO  432MB 0x7FFFC0000000 -> 0x7FFFDB0E0000

/Library/Apple/System/Library/Accounts/Notification/CloudBookmarksAccountsNotifier.bundle/Contents/MacOS/CloudBookmarksAccountsNotifier
                  __TEXT 0x7FFF20040000 -> 0x7FFF20042000
                  __DATA 0x7FFF81B6B108 -> 0x7FFF81B6B8F0
              __LINKEDIT 0x7FFFC05C0000 -> 0x7FFFD8A4A538

/System/Library/AccessibilityBundles/AXSpeechImplementation.bundle/Versions/A/AXSpeechImplementation
                  __TEXT 0x7FFF20042000 -> 0x7FFF20048000
                  __DATA 0x7FFF81B6B8F0 -> 0x7FFF81B6CF70
              __LINKEDIT 0x7FFFC05C0000 -> 0x7FFFD8A4A538

/System/Library/Accounts/Access/CloudKitAccessPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/CloudKitAccessPlugin
                  __TEXT 0x7FFF20048000 -> 0x7FFF2004C000
                  __DATA 0x7FFF81B6CF70 -> 0x7FFF81B6D840
              __LINKEDIT 0x7FFFC05C0000 -> 0x7FFFD8A4A538
(...)

The format of the map file (which is unchanged in Big Sur) is pretty straighforward:

It contains a 3-line header
It contains several hundreds of entries, one for every file included in the shared cache file, that specify where relevant sections of the specified shared library can be found in the shared cache file

Prior to Big Sur, all shared libraries listed in the map file (that's 1809 in Catalina) were also located in the file system.
In Big Sur, most are not. In fact, in Big Sur 11.2.3, only 12 out of 1956 of the listed libraries can be found in the file system:
(for file in $(grep / /System/Library/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64.map); do ls $file; done) 2>&1 | grep "No such file or directory" | wc -l
1944
grep / /System/Library/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64.map | wc -l
1956

That's most probably the reason why the cache files were moved from /var/db/dyld to a SIP-protected folder, namely /System: to make it clear that you shouldn't mess around with them.
If you delete the shared cache files in /System/Library/dyld/, I'm afraid your system won't be able to boot or run.
Further reading
How to fix an extracted dyld from dyld_shared_cache_x86_64? Stack Exchange/Reverse Engineering question on extracting dylib files from the shared cache (mentions a utility named dyld_shared_cache_util from this open source project: dyld-shared-cache-big-sur)
https://www.exploit-database.net/?id=102279 Information about an exploit on how to get privilege escalation via update_dyld_shared_cache on macOS 10.14 Mojave.
https://blog.lse.epita.fr/2017/03/14/playing-with-mach-os-and-dyld.html#the-shared-cache Overview of the shared cache format on OS X 10.10 Yosemite
https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Dyld_shared_cache Shared cache differences between iOS and macOS prior to Big Sur

These are cached files that are created when your mac starts up, they are created again even if you delete it. as it is part of macos system files, it is recommended that you do not delete it.


Finder stopped opening a new window when I click the Dock icon When I click on the Finder icon in the dock, it always used to open a new window for me unless I already had a window open. In that case it would bring that window to the front which was no problem. But now if I have no windows open, and I click on the Finder icon, no new window opens. I have to hit Command-N if I want a new window.

Which setting do I have to change, so that Finder will open a new window if there is not already a window open?

What about when creating a new user?  Does that work over there or has it the same behavior?

If it DOES work on the new user, I would try this is in order inside the problem account:

It is (hopefully) unnecessary to mention that you want to create a backup of your machine first before trying the following steps, but I still felt the urge to do so.

flush all cache files (~/Library/Caches/*.*)

in Finder, open menu "Go", press down "Alt" and while holding click on "Library"
navigate INTO the Caches folder and select every object you can find and remove them
reboot the computer (logging in and out possibly does the same trick, but I want to be sure)
empty the Trash at your leisure once logged back in

check ~/Library/Saved Application States to see if there is a folder com.apple.Finder and dump it (if there is not, less work for you)
This is more of a blunt measure, but I think still worth trying: create a folder on the Desktop, move all preference files in there and then test AFTER you logged out and back in.  If it resumed working, try again with more and more preferences put back until either all are back in or the problem re-occurs.  Occasionally, you may want to log out and back in as well to see if, after placing a file back, the behavior starts again.  If removing all preferences does not bring the behavior back to normal, just move all back in overwriting every newly created one.

Until their respective preference files are back in, I would recommend not to open those applications (especially Mail) as this may have side-effects on your applications' settings and sometimes content becoming inaccessible (or more difficult to reach/get back).

The reasoning behind number 3 is that some preferences may not be viewed as the obvious origin, but still may have caused that.  Removing them all and then putting them back one-by-one (or 5 at a time) makes sure that you can identify which file this has actually caused.

In the event that a newly created user has the same behavior (only then), you can try to install the latest combo update or re-install Mac OS X (no erase, just installing over the existing installation) to repair/re-add corrupted/missing files.

just click on force quit and relaunch it it will open in usual way.


Why does a video file get bigger after editing it with iMovie? Input File:

Kind: MPEG-4 File
Size: 305 MB
Dimensions: 640 x 360
Codecs: H.264, AAC
Duration: 52:07
Audio Channels: 2

After using iMovie to trim a bit from the beginning and end of the file, I tried to export the file via File → Share → File… with the following settings:

Format: Video and Audio
Resolution: 720p (iMovie only offers me 540p as alternative)
Quality: High (according to an answer to a similar question this means H.264)
Compress: Better Quality

The estimation on file size shown by iMovie is 4.35 GB. My questions:

How come the file size increases after I cut something from it, encoded both with H.264?
Why does iMovie not offer me the input resolution as an output resolution?

I'd like to be able to trim a video and save it with roughly the same size/time ratio.

720p resolution is 1280×720, which equates to quadruple the number of pixels vs. your original 640×360 (360p) movie. This alone would account for a huge jump in storage size.

You'll want to output in 540p instead (960×540). However this will still produce a video with 2.25× the number of pixels, so the resulting video may or may not still be larger.

As to why you can’t output in 360p, this appears to be a design decision by Apple (possibly to steer us towards Final Cut Pro), because earlier versions of iMovie allowed more granularity. In fact, in iMovie 10.0, 480p was still available, but as of iMovie 10.1, it’s gone. I suggest you voice your concerns to Apple.

Lastly, I should point out that Low, Medium and High Quality settings  all encode in H.264. They just use different encoding profiles/levels, with varying bitrates. From the figures you provided, I’d say your original video wasn’t produced using a profile equivalent to iMovie’s High setting. So you’ll probably want to try Medium or even Low.

If you still can’t keep your file size down encoding in 540p and using a lower profile, you can still down-sample it through Handbrake. However the upscaling-downscaling is sure to lower your video quality by some token amount. So it's a tradeoff.

One of the possible solutions I came up with is you upload your video to YouTube and YouTube would help you reduce the size with good quality at the same time. Finally, you just download back the file from YouTube.


Touch ID Canceled by another authentication I've had this issue over multiple iterations of OS. This began for me in High Sierra, followed into Mojave, and now into Catalina. I finally figured I'd deal with it. I've tried everything I've found currently, and nothing works.

I've done the following.

Deleted everything in my Keychain folder and rebooted.
Deleted the entire /Library/Keychain folder itself, and rebooted.
Tested another profile, which did work, however it doesn't help me aside from knowing something's messed up with my profile.

Any other ideas before I blow this profile away? This is a work laptop so it'll be a pain to get this back to normal working order.

My suggestion might sound redundant but see if below link helps. I went through same steps and it worked for me. I am also on Catalina.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7765052


Open location of a photo in Finder from Photos.app In Yosemite, I am trying to upload a photo to website. So I open Photos, select a photo and then try to locate the location of the photo. However I could not find it. Before Photos it was possible in iPhoto. Is there a way to locate a photo in Finder? By the way if relevant, I am also using iCloud Storage for photos. However my hdd is big enough so it should be storing photos locally too.

OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 - Photos Version 1.0 - Looks like Apple removed the option to show the photo in Finder.

Not the most direct method, but try  this:

Go to Photos Menu -> Preferences -> General
Click the "Show in Finder" button in the dialog box.  In Finder you'll see a "Photos Library" highlighted
Right-click and select "Show Package Contents", this will show a directory listing
Select and open the folder named "Masters"
Browse by Year-Month-Date of when the photos or videos were created

I hope Apple restores the more direct "Locate in Finder" for the photo itself.

From Photos app, right-click (two-finger click on trackpads) on any image you want to access in Finder
Choose “Show Referenced File in Finder” from the option list to immediately jump to that image files finder location

Or from File Menu in Photos:
You can also access the same option from the File menu of Photos app:
Select an image in Photos app for OS X and pull down the “File” menu
Choose “Show Referenced File in Finder” to open the original files location within the Mac file system
But it is not working always:

Perhaps a future update to OS X Photos app will include a “Show In
Finder” option natively for all photo libraries, that would certainly
be a welcome feature for many Mac users. In the meantime, if you have
migrated a library into Photos app from iPhoto or Aperture, you won’t
have the right-click option unless you specifically chose to stop
import copying files into Photos before you moved the library over.
The only real workaround to that would be to make a new Photos app
library and having it use references rather than copying into the app
itself.

source: http://osxdaily.com/2015/04/22/show-original-file-from-photos-app-mac-finder-osx/


Should I use MaxiVista or Air Display for a Windows 7 monitor extender? I'm about to go on a trip and I'm wondering if anyone has tried both MaxiVista and Air Display as monitor extenders for Win7. MaxiVista was first on a PC and Air Display is still in beta for PC.

I use Maxivista and have no problems. I use it on my Windows boxes for a very long time and it just works as promised.

if you only use windows, then you should go buying MaxiVista as it's stable and works great.

Air Display was firstly for iPad as a extra monitor, and they are now doing the Windows part witch can take time.

But there again... the Air Display beta is free while MaxiVista costs 40 bucks (or $100 is you want mirroring and high res)

:o)

my recommendation: try Air Display for free :)


How do you find an AirTag on the web How do you find an AirTag on the web using iCloud.com's FindMyiPhone (not the app?)

AirTags can only be tracked with Find My app, either on an iPhone/iPad or Mac - but not on the web.
Instructions from Apple for locating and AirTag:

Open the Find My app, then tap the Items tab.
Choose the AirTag you want to locate in the Items list.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210967

It doesn't have a built-in GPS signal sender, so it can only be used by your cell-phone App which means the range is under 15 meters.


Is there a cheap and easy means to evaluate iPhone chargers and cables? Is there an app for iPhone and iPad that will indicate charge voltage and current?  Is this information available to the user already by some means I am not aware of?  And without jailbreaking or some other hack?
The problem is that there's a number of third party Lightning cables and USB chargers that may not do exactly what they claim on the box and it would be great to be able to verify the claims.  Or there's the possibility that the box is long gone and there's a need to identify the capability of a cable or charger quickly.  It would be nice to get some idea on what a cable or charger can do without setting up some lengthy and involved timing of how long it takes to do a recharge.  It would also be nice to get some voltage and current data without some inline USB ammeter and voltmeter, as such meters can be easily misplaced when they are needed while an iPhone is always in my reach.
I found I can get some limited information about cables and chargers with my MacBook.  I can connect a cable between my iPhone and MacBook and see what System Information reports as voltage and current being supplied to the iPhone.  Because every USB port on an Apple computer is limited to 5 volts at 3 amps there's only three outcomes it tests.  Plug in cable and System Information shows data and power connection, this means cable has power and data connection.  Plug in cable, System Information shows nothing as if the cable is not connected, but iPhone is charging, means the cable has a power connection but no data connection.  Plug in cable, System Information shows nothing, and iPhone is not charging, means the cable is just broken.  I guess there is a fourth option.  Plug in cable and it starts a fire, then everybody dies, and people are sad.
I can do something similar with USB power bricks.  I can use a known good USB-C cable and plug USB power bricks into my MacBook and see what System Information reports about it.  Like with the cable test this gives little more than a pass/fail.  A MacBook doesn't "speak" USB-BC and so any such USB power brick will just show as providing 5 watts even if it is capable of more.  With USB-PD power supplies it will show the power supplied but not the voltage.  In many cases the power supplied indicates the voltage supplied.  12 watts or less means 5 volts.  More than 45 watts means 20 volts.  Other than that there can be some ambiguity on what the power supply is doing.
Searching the internet for an iPhone app that does what I'm looking for has proven difficult, perhaps as I don't know the right search terms.  That is assuming an app that provides the functions I'm looking for exists.
An app for macOS, or some other OS for a laptop with USB-C, might be helpful.  Such an app will not be much help in identifying USB-BC power supplies and cables but if there is something that can show what a USB-PD power supply is saying can be helpful.  The goal is to identify cables and power supplies in order to see how they will act with iPhones and other Apple devices with Lightning ports.  Something that can tell me what a USB-PD power supply can do is at least halfway to my goal.

The only thing I have found that consistently works is a USB-C power meter, such as this one from Satechi:
https://satechi.net/products/usb-c-power-meter?variant=31043692041
I have tested many combinations of chargers, adapters, etc. and this will give the correct information. I found that some combinations of chargers and adapters work differently with for example a MacBook Pro and an iPad Pro - so getting the reading off a MacBook Pro might not reflect what actually happens with an iPad for example. This has happened to me even though the iPad Pro on paper should support that same voltage/ampere - and probably does - but for some reason having an adapter in between the charger and the iPad Pro makes for a different scenario.

I am trying to give you some ideas, however, answering this wall of text is hardly possible, since there are multiple questions and this is a rather broad topic.

Coconut-battery: This Mac App will give you information about cycle counts and power supply on the Mac side. If you connect an iPhone/iPad you can also see their information. This will give you more info about connected wall plugs and batteries.
Check your cables with a multimeter: Usually a cable either works or it doesn't (and usually it does not work if there is physical damage that you can see). However, you could check that in detail if you use a multimeter.
Using iPhone/iPad/Mac cables/wall plugs interchangeably is no problem: Your device will draw the current it needs. This means, as long as the voltage is the same, you can use wall plugs interchangeably. E.g. I use my MBPs wall plug (87W, USB-C) sometimes to charge my iPad. Further, all wall plugs have small text on them, indicating the voltage and current they provide. E.g. my MBPs charger states:

Input: 100-240V ~ 1.5A 50-60HZ
Output: 20.2V--4.3A (USB PD) or 9V--3A (USB PD) or 5.2V--2.4A

I know that you mentioned you don't want to use a multimeter, however, for other readers this info/tip might be useful.


Should I upgrade an old MacBook (2,1) to Mavericks? I have this old machine:

  Model Name:MacBook
  Model Identifier:MacBook2,1
  Processor Name:Intel Core 2 Duo
  Processor Speed:2.16 GHz
  Number Of Processors:1
  Total Number Of Cores:2
  L2 Cache:4 MB
  Memory:3 GB
  Bus Speed:667 MHz

I've read that Mavericks is good for old machines ... but is this too old?
It's currently running 10.5.8.

Sorry ... according to http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/ it's not even possible!

Lion works just fine on my 13inch white MacBook2,1 mid-2007. I'm thinking about a RAM upgrade, I got 2GB, will be upgrading to 6GB (yes, it's possible) and I'll replace my HD to an SSD.  After that I'll try upgrading to Mountain Lion and Mavericks... we'll see.


How to trigger iOS-Alarm to start another app in iOS Shortcuts-App? I am really looking for a Radio-Clock for my iPhone. This seems to be non-trivial looking at iPhone/iPad alarm clock app with custom radio stream support . All proposed solutions require the app to be running until the alarm goes off. Now that we have Shortcuts this should be a piece of cake: start Alarm -> when done -> play my favourite radio url. Or is it not? Is there a reason in case it is not (besides Apple did not implemented it)?

I don't know about iOS devices, but if you have a HomePod, you could use the Home.app.
Home.app > Bottom of screen > Automation > Create Automation
Select "A Time of Day Occurs" > Time Of Day > Next
Select your HomePod > Next
Select When > Then Turn Off > set timer
Select Media > Choose Audio
Radio
Select station.
This may help others.


How to stop Terminal from using special characters? When I'm using arguments with quotes in the Terminal, the quote is first highlighted and then changes to a special character when certain characters are entered after it.

For example trying to type "u changes to ü.

How do I disable this?

I'm on OS X El Capitan, 10.11.6

Go to system prefs/keyboard/input sources and get rid of the layout called US International PC.  Use US or ABC instead.

If you are using iTerm2, then select Esc+ for the Left Option Key in Preferences > Profile > Keys. Then you can use Option-b for the previous word and Option-f for the next word.


How do I make Spotlight stop indexing my Backup drive? I have a 2TB external drive I use for Time Machine. At random intervals, it will decide to spin up and my entire UI freezes until it's finished. This is incredibly annoying.

It appears that this is due to Spotlight indexing. They suggest adding the Backup drive to Spotlight's blacklist, so I did:

Am I stuck having to live with constant beach ball attacks?

Update: I've already tried mdutil. It doesn't work.

$ sudo mdutil -E -i off /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/
Password:
/Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb:
    Indexing enabled.

If it's impossible to disable indexing, I would settle for making the backup drive never spin down.

Create an empty file on the root of that drive, named .metadata_never_index.  This Mac OS X Hints article says more.

Here's the man page for mdutil:

mdutil(1)                 BSD General Commands Manual

NAME
     mdutil -- manage the metadata stores used by Spotlight

SYNOPSIS
     mdutil [-pEsav] [-i on | off] mountPoint ...

DESCRIPTION
     The mdutil command is useful for managing the metadata stores for mounted volumes.

     The following options are available:

     -p  Spotlight caches indexes of some network devices locally.  This option requests that a local
         caches be flushed to the appropriate network device.

     -E  This flag will cause each local store for the volumes indicated to be erased.  The stores will
         be rebuilt if appropriate.

     -i on | off
         Sets the indexing status for the provided volumes to on or off.  Note that indexing may be
         delayed due to low disk space or other conditions.

     -s  Display the indexing status of the listed volumes.

     -a  Apply command to all volumes.

     -v  Print verbose information when available.

I would use:

mdutil -E -i off [the mountpoint for your backup drive]


MacBook Pro won't boot with new hard drive, but a different MacBook Pro will So here are the details. My friend and I both have 13-inch Mid 2010 MacBook Pro's. Same processor and specs since they were purchased at the same time, but originally had 250 GB hard drives. His hard drive failed and needed a new one. Put a 500 GB Seagate Momentus 5400.6 in his computer, and tried using a flash drive with "Install OS X Mavericks" on it to install Mavericks on his new hard drive. No matter what, it wouldn't install. I finally was able to install OS X 10.9.4 on it by connecting the new hard drive to my computer with a USB hard drive enclosure. I put the hard drive back inside his computer and it wouldn't boot (stuck on the gray screen with apple logo and a spinning wheel). I then attached to the hard drive to his computer externally with the USB enclosure, and then it booted and worked perfectly.

So, it seemed like the problem was with something inside his computer, but then I switched our drives, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I put my original hard drive into his computer, and his new hard drive into my computer, and they both booted and worked perfectly, so I have no idea why his computer will not boot with the new hard drive internally.

To summarize, his computer boots with: 1) new hard drive connected externally (won't work if it's internal), and 2) my hard drive internally
but my computer boots with: 1) new hard drive connected externally AND internally, and 2) my hard drive internally.
Both hard drives have OS X 10.9.4 installed

If anyone has any idea what's causing this and how to make his computer work with the new hard drive internally that would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Update
I was able to test the computers with some other hard drives. I have his original hard drive (which apparently needed to be replaced), which I was able to read with my computer and install Mavericks on. I also installed Mavericks on a 1 TB Toshiba hard drive. Here's the results with all 4 hard drives installed internally on either computer:

His computer:
1) Works perfectly with the original hard drive from my computer (recall they are the same model MacBook Pro)
2) Stuck on gray screen with apple logo and spinning wheel when booting with 500 GB Seagate and 1 TB Toshiba hard drives
3) Folder with question mark when booting with his original hard drive (which is why he said/was told it needed to be replaced originally)

My Computer:
1) Works with all 4 hard drives, including the one that causes his computer to show a folder with a question mark.

Could you swap hdd cable and see If that help ? Also take a look here, where the general consensus seems to be that the issue is the hard drive cable: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2648100?tstart=0

Hey I’m so sorry to hear about your troubles, but you swapped a lot of drives around which is decent troubleshooting.

I would DEFINITELY check all of your cables. I have a mid 2012 and my stock hard drive is still doing awesome, but since Mojave... things haven’t been too great. I ran so many HDD diagnostics and they all say it’s good.. I mention this b/c if it was taken care of it could last a while, haha even tho they’ll be extinct soon enough.

But looking at this as a tech, I would check your cables, and if you can swap them out. Anything you can physical see is important.

Also, roughly 90% of my repairs: PC, Mac, mobile devices, diagnostic ultrasound systems... Sometimes issues can be resolved by an older backup.

So if the cables end up being okay and don’t seem to be your issue, and definitely verify that. I’d check the last time you replaced your battery, and if you can run any power diagnostics. Use software, but if you’re trained crack that sucker open and make sure your drives even getting the energy it needs...

If not the battery it could be an issue with the board, but cross that bridge when you come to it, and if it does PHYSICAL INSOECTIONS are key.. I’ve actuslly found bad caps, haha a bad timing chip for an u/s system, and just SMD components that may deserved a magnified view and testing.

If I’m wrong I’m sorry that with Mac laptops I’ve only been studying for the past two years + what I learned in a NetOps course. (I was going to take the exams and open up a 3rd party repair shop not run by some business grad that rrpoaced broken screen once, I would like to establish some sort of standard in that industry.)

I have repaired and or modified 2-mabookpro’s, 3-MacBook Airs, and iMac, so my experience there may not be to par however I promise I’ve proudly repaired a lot of systems. It’s a rush when you get.

check out this video if you need help resolving s power issue

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T_sCEe7fHkw
    YouTube Video, schematic and repair walkthrough of power
    circuitry and MagSafe

You’ll see, once you resolve your issue (you willmbut please don’t give up the hell is how you learn more) you’ll have all sorts of neurons firing haha


Accessing an Apache server installed in VirtualBox from Mac I want to install a linux debian in virtual box and on debian an apache webserver. After this, I'd like to access it form my mac via browser like http://myvirtualbox:80/myfolder. The goal is to "dry" test the apache configuration before performing it on a live debian server... is this setting possible and if so, how?

UPDATE: After choosing "Internal" I tried to determine the IP-address...

root@straubedebian:~# ip addr eth0
Command "eth0" is unknown, try "ip addr help".
root@straubedebian:~# ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 08:00:27:37:f8:b2 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet6 fe80::a00:27ff:fe37:f8b2/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
3: pan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN
    link/ether f2:cf:03:a1:c0:99 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
root@straubedebian:~# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  Hardware Adresse 08:00:27:37:f8:b2
          inet6-Adresse: fe80::a00:27ff:fe37:f8b2/64 Gültigkeitsbereich:Verbindung
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metrik:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:25 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          Kollisionen:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:5069 (4.9 KiB)

lo        Link encap:Lokale Schleife
          inet Adresse:127.0.0.1  Maske:255.0.0.0
          inet6-Adresse: ::1/128 Gültigkeitsbereich:Maschine
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metrik:1
          RX packets:753 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:753 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          Kollisionen:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:0
          RX bytes:59097 (57.7 KiB)  TX bytes:59097 (57.7 KiB)

There's no ip address I can use :-)

After that I switched to "Host-only" and again no ip-address:

root@straubedebian:~# ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 08:00:27:37:f8:b2 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet6 fe80::a00:27ff:fe37:f8b2/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
3: pan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN
    link/ether f2:cf:03:a1:c0:99 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Is this a debian issue or a misconfiguration in VirtualBox?

Set up Host-Only, Internal or Bridged Networking. Whenever you change the virtual machine's network configuration you need to inform the operating system within that virtual machine of that change. The easiest way is to simply reboot the virtual machine.
Look up the virtual machine's IP-Adress using ip addr eth0.
Verify basic connectivity using ping <ip-address from previous step> from your mac's terminal.
Edit your mac's /etc/hosts using sudo vim /etc/hosts (or use an editor like text mate that can elevate privileges by itself). Add a line that looks like this: <ip-address as above> myvirtualbox anothername yetanothername

A more powerful approach, albeit maybe only for a more console-savvy audience is Vagrant.

had to reinstall with Bridged Networking pre-configured, just then worked.

thanks!