Yosemite OSX iMac reboot progress bar stuck at 50% My son went out of town and, upon returning, turned on his iMac. It rebooted and went into the progress bar typically showing during updates. It goes to the 50% mark, fairly quickly but then stayed there for 10 minutes. He rebooted and tried again but, this time let it sit overnight, at least six hours, but still stuck at 50%.

He tells me he installed Yosemite but not any time in the last few days before he left. From Googling around we tried resetting PRAM and also verifying the hard disk form disk utilities. The hard disk gave a green check mark(?) and said the volume was OK. I asked him to verify permissions but that was now grayed out.

Unfortunately, I am not a Mac user and I'm trying to help him over the phone. I'm very technically inclined but don't know what to do about this issue.

EDIT: So now things are getting worse as he tries rebooting and, after the start up sound, the computer powers down.

EDIT2: I just learned that the computer was not turned off while he was away which leads me to believe the system tried to update itself and something went wrong causing some system files to not be found or, perhaps, the few things we tried to do to the system helped that along.

So we found out Apple will check out his system even though it's not under warranty and, if it can be fixed in the software, they'll also fix it for free. What a great company!

EDIT3: Apple decided the hard drive had gone bad and replaced it. My son has a friend in the data recovery business who will attempt to extract the data.

From your describe("progress bar typically showing during updates"). sound like the system is updating and doing something. Click "⌘L" will show you installation log, you can check what's going on

for more information, see this thread: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=12589


What are these “Power Events:” > “Next Scheduled Events:” that are showing up in my macOS system information? I am running macOS Catalina Public Beta 9 (10.15, 19A573a) on my MacBook Air (2019) and noticed these — at least to my eyes — odd entries under “Hardware > Power” when looking at system information. FWIW, I don’t recall ever seeing these under “Hardware > Power” when running macOS Mojave (10.14):

Power Events:

  Next Scheduled Events:

    appPID: 353
    Type:   Wake
    Scheduled By:   com.apple.alarm.user-invisible
    Time:   10/6/19, 6:27 AM
    UserVisible:    0

    appPID: 356
    Type:   Wake
    Scheduled By:   com.apple.alarm.user-invisible
    Time:   10/6/19, 7:47 AM
    UserVisible:    0

I have utterly no alarms or power events that I have set on my Mac and double checking under “Energy Saver” as well as my calendar shows nothing as well. And besides, I would never set up crazy early morning alarms like this anyway.

Is this something connected to me using macOS Catalina Public Beta? Since November 6th seems to be the date macOS Catalina will come out of beta.

FWIW, checking my running processes right now I see the following for those appPID values:

501   356 ??         0:03.06 /usr/libexec/UserEventAgent (Aqua)
501   353 ??         0:02.74 /usr/sbin/cfprefsd agent

Found some info on cfprefsd on this Other World Computing post and UserEventAgent on this How-To Geek post. And the information is useful as to literally what these processes do, but no real explanation as to why they are set in this case.

you can use terminal command:

sudo pmset schedule cancelall

Then you can resolve it


After upgrade to Yosemite Time Machine says "Disk Full" even if there's 350GB free space I upgraded to Yosemite yesterday, and just now I got a Time Machine alert

  Disk is Full

although there are 350+ GB on the backup disk according to Finder. It said it had deleted an old backup (boo).

Just now I did a manual backup (from the TM preferences panel) and it backed up 2 MB to the free 350GB disk and all was fine.

What gives?  What can I do to make TM happy?

If on top of your Mac's hard drive, you are also backuping an external USB drive, you may want to check this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/27031297

Try to open Terminal (use spotlight) and type sudo rm -Rf (Directory to disk)/*


How do to keep web pages (like google.com and yahoo.com) from grabing cursor in Safari (form focusing)? Certain sites grab the selection from the address bar into their own field when they load. Google and Yahoo Search are two examples as they automatically pull the focus to their search box. Is there a way to turn this off in Safari so the focus stays in address bar?

For context, Firefox supports it via a preference, according to a Super User question.

This is a known feature of HTML.

using safari (or other browsers too) i installed adblock. then i select the search bar that is offendng, right click and tell adblock to block this ad. can be tricky selecting the right amount of the code to block, but a little trial and error will make it work.


macOS Sierra: How do you enable shutdown keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + Opt + Cmd + Power)? After upgrading to macOS Sierra yesterday, I notice that the system keyboard shortcut to shut down the computer no longer works.

As documented here, before the upgrade you could shut down the computer using Control–Option–Command–(Power button or Media Eject).

After the upgrade, the system seems to ignore the "Control–Option–Command" combo and merely sleep the display as if I had tapped the Power button alone.

Do you know of any documentation on how to restore the old shortcut?

Ctrl + Cmd + Opt + Power/Eject still works in macOS Sierra. I just tested it with an upgraded install (El Capitan to Sierra) on an MBP Mid-2014. Please see if another keyboard shortcuts overrides the shutdown command:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts

After upgrading to macOS Sierra my keyboard shortcut for Spotlight (CMD + Space) was changed to Ctrl + Space. I had to change it manually to restore the functionality.

Edit:
John, please do the following: Backup all PLIST-files starting with com.apple. + pbs.plist + ".GlobalPreferences.plist (in Terminal:

cp -f ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist ~/Desktop
# this will copy the file as a backup to the Desktop

rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist
# this will delete the original file

Also backup the folder ~/Library/Caches/. Now delete everything inside this folder. Empty the trash and reboot.

Also with fn + power. Then select Shut Down with return key.


Why does my MacBook's screen continually dim and brighten without my input? My MacBook Pro screen constantly dims and brightens.  The automatic box is unchecked.  The brightness adjustment button is constantly moving back and forth.

Go your System Preferences, select "Displays", and uncheck Auto-adjust Brightness.


How make Safari download PDF files instead of opening them in-page? Firefox downloads my PDF files straight to "Downloads", Safari opens them "in-page".

I need PDF files to save to a file, not to open.

Is there a setting make Safari download PDF files instead of opening them in-page?

Open up a terminal window: ⌘space and type Terminal. Hit enter when its highlighted. When you get to the terminal prompt, type the following command:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES

You won't get a response at the command line, but once you restart Safari it will no longer open them in the browser.

To take it a step further while you're there, you can keep it from opening them once they are downloaded with this one:

defaults write com.apple.Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -bool NO

This last command achieves what the other answer suggests.

From this article:

Go into the Preferences and simply un-tick the option Open “safe”
files after downloading.


How to send text messages to non apple devices from an iPad? i just bought my iPad mini for 2 weeks or more which has been jail broken. So since I'm using a weekly prepaid data plan, I need to renew the data plan again and again for every week. Hence I wanna know if I can use iMessages in order to apply my data plan again which I need to send it to '28882'.

Is that possible to use iMessages, or if it does not allow me to do so, do you have any idea how to send text messages as if 'normal messages' to especially non-apple devices?

Any idea what other apps do I need to use?

Up until I did an update, I could email non Apple users without any problem. After the update, I couldn't. I spent over an hour with an Apple "genius" that finally fixed it. I just updated again and I have the same problem. This is ridiculous! I have customers that text me orders. I am so frustrated!! This is messing with my income!

In Settings->Messages there is an option Send as SMS

If this still not working, you can disable iMessage in the same settings page.


"Go Home" Siri Similar Shortcuts? Are there similar shorcuts to navigating to locations that you have saved.  I noticed "Go Home" works if you have home programmed into contacts but nothing else.  School used to work not anymore.

Similar android question https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/172333/ok-google-go-to-blank

This article has a nice list showing the voice shortcuts of Apple Maps with Siri: http://www.imore.com/how-use-siri-get-directions-maps-iphone-and-ipad


Install an older OS X version on an external volume I am using 10.9 and would like to install 10.7 on an external volume. I have the “Install Mac OS X Lion” application, but when I run it, I get the message

  This version of Mac OS X is too new to run “Install Mac OS X” from Mac OS X 10.7.

Well, I do not want to downgrade, I just want to have a way to boot into 10.7. Is there any way around this?

The (or at least a) solution is embarrassingly simple: Do not start the installer from a running system, but make a bootable install medium from the disk image included in the install program package and use that.

Quick instructions (more detailed ones can easily be found on the net, but I have not read any thoroughly enough to be able to endorse them):

Take for example USB drive or SD card, partition it in Disk Utility, make one partition and make sure to select GUID partition scheme so that the medium will be bootable.
In Disk Utility use "Restore" to copy the Installer to the boot medium: As destination use the newly created partition, for the source use the Finder to show the package contents (right click) of "Install Mac OS X Lion", there locate InstallESD.dmg and drag it to the source field.
After copying, reboot holding the option key, select the install medium you just created and happily install Lion to a destination of your choice.

An 8GB medium will be fine for the installer (it's 4.7GB), and a 32GB partition for the installed system (this will leave you with more than 7GB of free space).

An alternative solution might be to run earlier versions of OS X in a Virtual Machine. Parallels Desktop Lite is free from the Mac App Store, and can create a VM from an OS installer app.

You can run versions of MacOS even if they are too old for the hardware. This is perfect for maintaining legacy software.


Applescript Expected “"” but found unknown token This is my code. I wanted to run an app (Game Capture HD) twice at the same time. But I get this Syntax Error: Expected “"” but found unknown token.
Appreciate if anyone can fix it
on run
    do shell script "open -n /Applications/Game\ Capture\ HD.app"
    tell application "Game\ Capture\ HD" to activate
end run

on open theFiles
    repeat with theFile in theFiles
        do shell script "open -na /Applications/Game\ Capture\ HD.app " & quote & (POSIX path of theFile) & quote
    end repeat
    tell application "Game\ Capture\ HD" to activate
end open

The spaces mess things up. Try:
do shell script "open -n " & quoted form of "/Applications/Game Capture HD.app"

Essentially, 'quoted form' is for passing text to 'do shell script'. Both the Script Editor and the shell will be interpreting the text and 'quoted form' helps manage that.
For more information, refer to the Applescript Language Guide > Class Reference > Text > Properties of text objects
Additional info can be found in Technical Note TN2065: do shell script in AppleScript


How do I add a new route to the PATH variable? Although this question is being answered many times, I could not find any help from previous posts, so here it is again.

I have tried to add a new route to PATH variable with no success.

I have added the following command:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/zend/share/ZendFramework/bin

to this files one at a time: ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc

After starting a new Terminal session I type

env

but the PATH variable never show the changes.

EDIT:

Seems that none of this files are being read when opening terminal, other routes where in this files and they are not being added either. On starting terminal I get this message "-bash: : command not found". If I execute

source ~/.profile

I get the route added to the PATH but it does not keep for the next Terminal session. How can I test what is happening on Terminal startup?

This are the contents of the files:

~/.profile

export PATH=/applications/MAMP/bin/php5.3/bin/:$PATH
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/man:$MANPATH
export PATH=/usr/local/zend/share/ZendFramework/bin:$PATH

~/.bashrc

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/zend/bin
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/zend/lib

~/.bash_profile is empty

None of the routes in any of them are displayed after typing

env

in Terminal.

well first off you only really need it in  ~/.bash_profile if you have one.

Second opening a new terminal session without quitting terminal app will not source the  ~/.bash_profile file.

You can just type "source  ~/.bash_profile" in the terminal and it should pick up your new settings.

Or quit terminal.app and restart it.

The problem is in how you are testing the changes.

Run the following command in Terminal to test your changes.

source ~/.profile

Once it looks correct, start a new window and re-verify the settings.

Every time you run the source command it will add the same path to your $PATH variable.


How do I search Recent Calls on iPhone? I am looking for a phone number in my history. All I know is the area code 808, which will narrow it down immensely, and its having occurred between a month and two months ago.

How can I search the call history for the area code?

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.1.2

Searching for contact numbers is possible through FaceTime. Type some digits of the that contact number into the address bar and Facetime will automatically search recent calls. You have to connect your iPhone to a Mac where your iCloud account should be logged in then FaceTime will automatically sync all your call history from your iPhone and then your are able to search a contact number through typing some digits in recent dial call's text field inside FaceTime.


Keyboard shortcut for cascading multiple windows of same application in macOs Need to know,

Is there any app, which gives a keyboard shortcut Or any inbuilt keyboard shortcut
to cascade windows(attached pic for reference) of same in application in macOs

Note that I'm not asking about Expose shortcut

Apparently if you hold the "Option" key wile selecting "Arrange In Front" from the Window menu of your application, that should do what you want. To make a shortcut for that, you should be able to add a shortcut in the keyboard preferences.

You might also look into Better Touch Tool

I use Application windows shortcut for this. It's the same as App Axpose gesture on a trackpad that expose not all windows but only windows of current application.

After windows is exposed, you can choose particular window by ← ↑ ↓ → keys.


ICloud Password prompt On my Yosemite OSX machine I often get an ICloud prompt after awaking from sleep or after a reboot like this

what program is causing this? Is it a valid Apple one or one trying to get my password?

I have not knowingly set an app-specific password.

and in normal use ie not just after awake I got the box again but a more interesting log

24/03/2016 11:51:12.488 identityservicesd[8431]: [Warning] Registration failed for Registration info (0x7ff8e1435230): [Registered: NO] [Type: AppleID] [Device Name: (null)] [Service Type: com.apple.private.alloy.maps] [Env: (null)] [Main ID: example@mac.com] [Phone Number: example@mac.com] [AppleID: example@mac.com] [UserID: E: example@mac.com] [C2K: NO] [Push Token: <f72dd563 26eccf96 f9e058ca b26ff2b7 fa67c0e9 e7b8e17e a9c86f31 c8d5f217>] [Region ID: R:GB] [Base Number: +440000000000] [URIs: ()] [Candidates: (example@mac.com, example@icloud.com, example@me.com)] [Auth Cert: 0x0] [Reg Cert: 0x0] [Profile ID: D:53092237] [Auth User ID: (null)] [Heartbeat Date: (null)]   (Error: 0)

From that list of contacts it does look message related but still what proof is that this is from Apple and note my Message does not work even if I provide a password(see other question)

You can try logging out your iCloud in Settings and logging in back again. I've had the same issue before when I changed some account settings on another device.

It's a legit prompt from OS X but I think it's a sync operation bug.

I finally found the following fix on a reddit forum and it solved my issue:

  Are two iCloud password prompts popping up after every reboot on Yosemite?
  If you set an application-specific password for iMessage and FaceTime, that's what the prompt is looking for you to provide. The dialog box asks for your iCloud password, but in reality it wants that app-specific password. Put it in twice (once for iMessage, once for FaceTime) and the prompts should go away.


Mimic Xcode's camelCase selection keyboard shortcuts in OS X I spend a very large amount of time editing text in Xcode, and I would like maneuvering around text within the rest of the Cocoa Text System to offer an identical experience. There are 3 versions of cursor keyboard shortcuts that I use regularly in Xcode (only showing forward, non-selection-altering versions for brevity):

⌃+→Move cursor 1 subword forward (^camelCase -> camel^Case -> camelCase^)
⌥ Option+→ Move cursor 1 word forward
⌘ Command+→ Move cursor to the end of the line

The OS X default keybindings respect 2 and 3, but there is a disparity with 1. Outside of Xcode, ⌃+→ behaves like ⌘ Command+→. It's not applicable terribly often, but every time ⌃+→ takes me to the end of a line in Mail or something, it's like a little firecracker goes off in my brain. It's just annoying enought that I'm willing to invest in any hackery to "fix" the behavior once and for all.

To avoid covering old ground, I'm already aware of this little tidbit, and this list of selectors, but I'm not aware of any API in the Cocoa Text System for subword selection. Maybe there's undocumented API in there somewhere?

I don't always attempt to make camelCase selections outside of Xcode with keyboard shortcuts, but when I do I want OS X to obey.

Sorry but what you want is not possible.

You could try adding the XCode keybindings that do this

"^\UF702" = "moveSubWordBackward:";                     /* Ctl-Left Arrow */
"^$\UF702" = "moveSubWordBackwardAndModifySelection:";  /* Ctl-Shift-Left Arrow */
"^\UF703" = "moveSubWordForward:";                      /* Ctl-Right Arrow */
"^$\UF703" = "moveSubWordForwardAndModifySelection:";   /* Ctl-Shift-Right Arrow */
"^\177" = "deleteSubWordBackward:";                     /* ctl-delete */
"^\UF728" = "deleteSubWordForward:";                    /* ctl-forwardDelete */

into your ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBindings.dict file but unless the application is written to respond to these methods, it won't work.  As you've said, these methods are not part of the standard Text System so these calls in an app will just go unanswered or you will get a system beep.

To navigate camel case (aka sub-words) to the right use

^ + [ to move a sub-word to the left

^ + ] to move a sub-word to the right

I confirmed this in OSX 10.10.1 running Xcode 6.1.1.


Which Trans Music Manager equivalents exist for OS X? I have a Denon DP-200USB turntable that converts analogue records (LPs) into MP3s (one MP3 per side) and stores them onto a USB memory stick.

This lovely piece of kit comes with some software called Trans Music Manager (PDF) that will automatically split tracks (based on silence between tracks) followed by naming and tagging them using Gracenote.

Sadly this software runs under Microsoft Windows, for which I don't have a licence.

Are there any solutions out there that can do this easily under Snow Leopard? Free and open-source software is preferred, but paid-for alternatives would be considered.

I haven't personally tried it, but AudioSlicer may be a good candidate

  AudioSlicer is a Cocoa GUI application
  for Mac OS X that finds all silences
  in an audio file and allows you to
  split it into several smaller audio
  files and to name/tag them properly.

Doesn't seem to do the Gracenote tag fetching, but you could use Jaikoz (tag from MusicBrainz db) or SimpleTagger (tag from Amazon db) for that.

Open in QuickTime Player and save as iPhone.


How can I install an SSD on my new Lion MBP w/out install disks? I just got a new MBP that came with Lion, and they didn't give me any install disks.  If I  swap in my new SSD, how can I install Lion on the new drive?

Update: There is the Mac OS X Utilities that I can get to by holding Command+R during a restart, which has options to install Lion and/or erase/fix a disk.  Additionally, the instruction manual I received gives instructions on how to replace the computer's hard drive, so it seems that Apple would account for setting up the new drive without a install-disk.  I missed the UPS delivery of my new SSD, so will have to wait until Monday, at which time I'll swap the drives, and see if this built-in utility works.  If not, I'll follow people's advice on mirroring the old disk over. Will reply back with result

Update 2: Installed SSD, and of course it doesn't let me get access to the OS X Utilities (i.e. via Command+R).  This must be another partition on the drive.  I'm going to try mirroring the two drives.  A curse upon all these screws I have re-remove

The recovery partition on your original disk was the only supported method until the Recovery Disk Assistant was made available.

The bulk of this answer was written before the official steps were published - so I would recommend the Recovery Disk Assistant even though HT4718 steps help understand what is happening under the hood.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

The easiest is to get a drive enclosure or adapter and re-run the Lion installer from the Recovery HD and install Lion onto the new SSD.

It likely won't matter if the drive with the recovery HD is on an external bus or an internal bus, but I would keep the original drive inside the mac until you have Lion installed on your SSD connected to an external port.

Boot off the SSD to test it and run migration from the internal drive to the SSD before doing swapping the drives inside your mac.

It still boggles my mind that any mac will ship without some sort of reinstall media. Look in the center of the box, under where the mac sat. Call apple if your media is missing so they can ship it to you or point out how they want you to reinstall the OS on a new drive. Your mac's hard drive is listed as a consumer replaceable part, so they have to provide you with the steps to do that.

Interestingly enough, there is no real way to do this. At least, there's no way to install Lion without the installer and since your computer came with Lion you don't have the installer and you also don't have Snow Leopard disks. If you're interested in transferring everything over anyways, go out and buy a disk enclosure, then use either Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the harddrive in your MacBook Pro over to the SSD and then proceed with the install. If you wanted to do a fresh Install, you might be able to actually do the install with the Recovery partition if it loads up the full installer giving you choice in which disk you install to, but no one has tried that yet.


MacBook Air - No internal speaker sound after boot (icon not greyed out + no red light) I don't know when I've started having this, but with my MacBook Air 2015 13", the volume icon only shows "Headphones" as an output device option.

The icon is not greyed out, nor is there any red light coming from the headphone jack. The startup chime works fine as well.

Resetting NVRAM - didn't work
Resetting SCM - didn't work
Re-plugging in the headphones (multiple times) - didn't work
Twirling the headphone plug (multiple times) - didn't work
Blowing in the headphone jack (multiple times) - didn't work

The problem fixed itself, by having the MacBook sleep overnight.

You may skipped the softwares for headphones or sound device. It was happened to me and i booted it again. It was fixed.


Run command line tools as separate app Is there a way to run command line tools as a separate app, so I can easily switch between them with apple+tab etc? I want this for things like a mail and irc client where I don't want to hunt down the terminal window to access them. Something like http://www.fluidapp.com but for the terminal.

You can open separate instance of Terminal.app with

/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal &

You'll have separate icon on the Dock also. However You'll not be able to distinguish them in ⌘ cmd+⇥ tab because they are going to be called simply "Terminal" and have the same icons.

appify seems to be what you're looking for…


Is there an alternative to downloading Lion from the net? I have a 13 inch Macbook Air 2011. A couple of days back, I was deleting some files and I landed in the Macintosh HD folder (root) and from there I ⌘+Deleted everything. Needless to say, my Mac does not boot up now.

After searching, I found that ⌘+R goes into recovery mode. Now, I'm on this screen (screenshot not mine):

and my Mac says 23 hours remaining. This is my 4th attempt at re-installation and I just can not get it to finish quickly. Sometimes I lose my net connection in between and the whole process starts over again. I have spent at least 72-90 hours reinstalling the whole thing 3 times, but it just doesn't finish. I'm on a 2 Mbps connection.

Is there an alternative to downloading OS X Lion from the net?

EDIT: I don't know anyone who has a Mac, and the Mac store is in another city. If I somehow do get the "Mac OS X Install ESD.dmg" from someone, is it possible to burn this into a bootable USB using Windows 7?

Sorry but I don't know of any other way to reinstall your lost data.

If you do want to download before installing, borrow someone else's Mac to

Download Lion from the Mac App Store. The installer should show up in your Applications folder.
Right-click on the installer and hit "Show Package Contents". Navigate to Contents > SharedSupport and look for a file called "InstallESD.dmg".
Open up Disk Utility and drag the DMG file into the left-hand sidebar. If you're burning it to a DVD, insert your DVD, select the disk image in the sidebar, and hit the "Burn" button. Skip down to the last step to use it.
If you want to burn Lion to a USB flash drive:

plug it in and click on it in the left-hand sidebar in Disk Utility.
Go to the Partition tab and select "1 Partition" from the dropdown menu. Choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) on the left.
Hit the Options button under the partition table and choose "GUID Partition Table". You'll need this to make the drive bootable on a Mac. Hit the Apply button when you're done to format your drive (note: it will erase everything on the drive).
Click on the "Restore" tab, choose the InstallESD.dmg file as the source and your flash drive as the destination. Hit the Apply button and it will create your bootable USB drive.

Connect your MBAir DVD drive and boot into OS X and hold the option key when you hear the startup chime. You can boot into your DVD or flash drive from there.

I have not tried this app, nor ever heard of it however its the only one i found so, i would give it a try if i could, second, my best tip for you, would be as so many said, a better internet connection, cause its probably there it fails!

oh and a simple reinstall of your os will fix your problems with no apparent information loss!

here is a link to a forum that has successfully done what you are looking for
link


AppleScript app is not recognized as default browser Target OS: Macos 10.15.3 Catalina

Goal: use apple script bundled to app as a default web browser

To debug I'm using very simple apple script, that just show passed url in dialog

on open location theURL
    display dialog "Passed url : " & theURL
end open location

I also added CFBundleURLTypes to Info.plist to claim binding to http\https url schemas

    <key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>CFBundleURLName</key>
            <string>My test app url</string>
            <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
            <array>
                <string>http</string>
                <string>https</string>
            </array>
        </dict>
    </array>

The problem: is that app is not showing up in 'Default web browser' combobox in System Preferences -> General

I've tried to dump Launch Service database
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -dump

And my app is present there.

Also tried force register
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -v -f ./MyTestApp.app

Also tried to sign my app by self issued signature.

Nothing helped.

What could I miss? Is there any additional configurations that should be done to let macos recognize my apple scrip app as possible default browser?

I do not think that you can build a browser like that, but I do know that there is a very simple browser out that which will take whatever URL it is sent and pass it to the clipboard:

https://github.com/alistairmcmillan/short/tree/master/Copy%20URL%20to%20Clipboard

Perhaps that might help.

I solved it by also adding document types for HTML and XHTML to the Info.plist, like this:
<key>CFBundleDocumentTypes</key>
<array>
    <dict>
        <key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
        <string>HTML document</string>
        <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
        <string>Viewer</string>
        <key>LSItemContentTypes</key>
        <array>
            <string>public.html</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
        <string>XHTML document</string>
        <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
        <string>Viewer</string>
        <key>LSItemContentTypes</key>
        <array>
            <string>public.xhtml</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</array>
<key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
<array>
    <dict>
        <key>CFBundleURLName</key>
        <string>Web site URL</string>
        <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
        <array>
            <string>http</string>
            <string>https</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</array>


How can I access emails in Apple Mail programmatically? I have an iMac running OS X 10.6.8 and use Apple Mail version 4.5.

I need to access specific parts of specific emails programmatically using Mathematica (others of course could do this more generally with any other programming language, I need to use Mathematica).

I need to find the specific eMails, which I can arrange to identify by either the:

"From" and/or
"Subject"

fields.

I then need to read either a string of numbers and characters from either the:

"Subject" or
"Body"

fields of the eMails.

So,

Can one do this?
If yes, how are emails in Apple Mail kept (flat file, database file, csv, unique format, other)?
What is the name of the above file?
In what directory can I find it?
How do I access the file and the relevant information in the file?

Thanks in advance.

One can do this.  The following shows what I've found...

Individual Apple Mail emails reside in a directory, typically something like the following:

/Users/UserName/Library/Mail/POP-myEmail@isp.com@pop.secureserver.net/INBOX.mbox/Messages

as ".emix" files readable by any text editor.

".emix" files have a sequential numbering by mails received by one's Apple Mail itself rather than the particular mailbox, something like:

18373.emix
18376.emix
18378.emix

The ".emix" files have clearly marked identifiers of their content.  An abridged ".emix" file follows::

Received: (somemailprovider ...); 16 Jul 2012 00:04:00 -0000
Received: from unknown ...; 16 Jul 2012 00:04:00 -0000
X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AuEPABVXA1DR...
Received: from ....isp.com ...; 15 Jul 2012 17:03:59 -0700
Received: by qcsg1 ...; Sun, 15 Jul 2012 17:03:59 -0700 (PDT)

DKIM-Signature: ...
Received: ...; Sun, 15 Jul 2012 17:03:59 -0700 (PDT)

Return-Path: <myEmail@isp.com>
Received: from iMac-6.local ....

Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2012 20:03:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: myFromEmail@isp.com
To: myToEmail@isp.com
Message-ID: <50035a6e.02d0e00a.1fef.....com>
Subject: TEST
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;boundary="----=_Part_0_1792110529.1342397034510"
X-Nonspam: None

------=_Part_0_...
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

------=_Part_0_...
Content-Type: image/gif; name=0001.gif
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: inline; filename=0001.gif

So, given all of this one needs to:

Identify which email one wants to read (I can use date and a specific email directory) ;
Import the text of the email into Mathematica;
Parse the required information using the appropriate identifiers in the ".emix" file.

A little cumbersome, but workable.

There are different paths you could take and to me it seems a bit odd to try to get the information out of the mailapplications data which has probably been saved in an encoded way. If you want to try this, you may find the data in the hidden /Username/Library. You should be able to access it via the Terminal.

Since you're flexible in the kind of language to use, I would highly recommend using Python and then just access the mailserver via imap (or pop3) and search for the information you want that way.

http://docs.python.org/library/imaplib.html#module-imaplib


Can I see which iPad apps I use most frequently? I have many games on my iPad which my kids play.  I'd like to remove the games and apps that aren't used but I don't know how to find this information.

Is there a way to see the most used apps on your iOS device?  Or possibly a list of apps with a "last used" data field?

In a pinch, you could look through the multitasking bar that appears when you double-click the home button. The apps are arranged in order of most recently used. It is not a measure of how frequently an app is used, but it could at least tell you if it was used recently, or if other apps have been of more interest lately.

no unforitunetly not, however, if all of the apps which you use, all depend on data. you can use an app like Onavo to see witch app use most data, hence which app you use the "most"

This is not scientific, and results can vary because of numerous reasons but it might give you a better insight


Is there an iPad whiteboard that can also be used on desktop machines? I've seen many iPad whiteboard apps but all seem to be either iPad only (eg Whiteboard Mojo) or are read-only from the web (Jot) or require local connection via wifi (splashtop) or make you pay for every Internet session (whiteboard HD). I don't mind paying for the app, but I want to use this for business, and nickel and diming per session isn't going to work. (How would people get reimbursed?)

So I want an app I can buy once and use for as many Internet whiteboard sessions with other iPads and desktop machines as I want.

This seems like it would be a good solution for you. No installation required, it should run on almost any desktop.
A Web Whiteboard

This product also may meet your needs.
NotateIt

DISCLAIMER: I am strongly interested in the product I suggest below, so maybe I am biased unintentionally, but I try to be as object and factual as possible.

Ziteboard is a virtual whiteboard web app running on any device with any operating systems with all major web browsers. The service is optimized for Ipad with Safari as it stated in the FAQ page. It's clutter free UI design ensures that the service run even on smart phone. Cross-platform is important when you don't know (in advance) that your collaborators what device use.


Finder- Reopen Last Closed Window Finder does not seem to navigate to the last folder opened. For instance, when I am saving several files or images - it would be nice to (and used to ) open in the last place I placed something - now it defaults to "User" and I have to navigate each time - very frustrating.

In Finder, use the Go in menu => Recent Folders. This is the closest you can get to

  "open[ing] in the last place I placed something"

More Information:

If you don't like the default, you can change the default Finder window to open as well. Go to Preferences in Finder.

Here is the solution to the OS Mojave, Finder problem

Click on top-left Apple icon
Then click on System Preferences
Then General
And then uncheck the box saying, "Close windows when quitting an app"
It will save your session of Finder and when you restart your system it will show you last opened tabs of the session

  NOTE: before Shut Down or Restart of the system, don't close the
  Finder


Why does OS X Mavericks block the purge command in Terminal? When I try the purge command on my terminal, OS X Mavericks gives me the following message:

Unable to purge disk buffers: Operation not permitted

This hasn't been the default behavior until now. I wonder why Apple changed that. Is there a reason behind this decision? What are the advantages/disadvantages of this?

You need to run this command with root privileges. Try:

> sudo purge

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:

Enter your account's password and it should run the purge command.

Apple probably made the decision for security purposes. The only disadvantage is you have to type in your admin password. The advantage is, for non-admin users, they can not run this command and potentially harm their OS.

Usually commands that require sudo in order to run at all are potentially destructive or invasive. Two other commands with this requirement are dtrace and xcode-select.

http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-give-your-mac-a-performance-boost--mac-46271

  Creating a Terminal Script to Purge the Memory

  Start by opening Terminal.
  Enter the following line:

cd Desktop/

  and press enter. This points the Terminal to your desktop rather than your user folder. You can point Terminal to any folder you want for this tutorial.
  Enter:

touch Purge

  and press enter. This creates a new file called "Purge" on your desktop, you won't see it just yet though.
  Enter:

pico Purge

  and press enter. This opens up the Terminal editor for the purge file.
  Enter the following text in the editor:

#!/bin/sh

purge

  Press Control + O and then Enter to save the file to your desktop. Then press Control + X to exit the editor. Make sure to use the Control key, not the command key.
  Once you're back at the normal Terminal screen, enter:

chmod 755 Purge

  and press enter. This makes the file we just created accessible to you. By default, OS X hides the files you create using touch.
  You now will have a file on your desktop called "Purge." You can open this file to automatically clean your computers memory. Once the Terminal shows a [Process complete] message you can close the application and continue on.


How to show custom previews for all fonts in 10.9 Font Book? For years, I've enjoyed the feature in OS X Font Book where you can type in custom text and scroll through all the fonts to preview it.  Now on Mavericks, when I try to do this, it only works for single-font families.  All font families containing multiple fonts (e.g. bold, italic, etc.) will only show the default sample text.  How can I change this behavior to be like older OS X versions, where you can see the custom text for all fonts?  I'm hoping there's a plist somewhere that can be edited.

This works (at least in Yosemite Public Beta 2):

Open Font Book, select "Custom" from the View menu, double-click in the preview area and type what you want. Then, close Font Book. Then, re-open Font Book. Now, whatever you had previously typed should be the preview text for every font.

Annoying, yes, but it's a lot better than nothing!

Use Text Edit: Paste your text, select it, then Format > Fonts > Show Fonts. Click only on the Font name (arrowing doesn't work). The selected text will change as you click different fonts.


Can apps purchased from one Apple ID be shared between multiple iTunes libraries? We have a number of iDevices in the family, and each user has their own Apple ID. Also, each person has their own computer to sync apps and other content.

If I purchase an app for my iPod, Can I share it with my wife and son, each of whom have their own IDs?

If so, how do I share purchased apps, if each person has their own computer or iTunes library?

Unfortunately the only way to share apps is to use the same Apple ID for purchases on every device.

You can use different IDs for iCloud, but you need to sign into the App Store with the same ID.

If you're signed in to the App Store with the correct ID you can download previously purchased apps for free, each person haven their own computer and iTunes library doesn't matter.

Try Home Sharing

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3819


Installing iOS on VMware Workstation I have a Windows PC and VMware Workstation. I am trying to figure out a way to install iOS on it.

Is there is way to install iOS on VMware Workstation?

No.  See relevant Stackoverflow discussion.

In short, you need to virtualize the ARM cpu, not an x86 model. Additionally, you'd need to virtualize the swipes and taps and whatnot, which would be quite the tall order.

Here's one project that's attempting to virtualize iOS on the QEMU platform: IEMU.

http://www.xpadian.com/download.html
it is not for vmware,but it is work and it is the best ios 7 emulator.


How do I force my iOS device to create a new backup on iCloud? I have an iPod5. I have been using iCloud for backups. However, I have an issue in a particular app that only goes away when I fully reset the device. (The issue in the app persists if I restore from iCloud backup, but that’s not what I want addressed here). So, at the moment, my iOS device is running as if it were a fresh new iOS install. I want to be able to keep going with this install and have it backed up to iCloud. However, I also want to keep my old backup around so that I can go back to that later.

I thought that iCloud would automatically start a new backup series when I chose to set up my iPod5 as a “New” device. However, when I look at the backups UI, I get the impression that I am going to lose my old backup as soon as it performs the next backup.

Under iCloud → Backup, I see “Last Backup: 1:37 AM”. That is the timestamp of the backup I performed on this iPod before resetting it:

Under “Manage Storage” when viewing iCloud settings through the device, it lists the iPod I’m using as matching the backup I made before I set up my iPod as a new iPod. The backup that it says is associated with this iPod is the very one I want to preserve when I make a backup of my iPod:

And when visiting that screen, you can see the discrepancy between the backup that looks like it will be overwritten and the backup that iOS plans on overwriting it with:

So, how do I get iOS iCloud backups to start a new backup or save/checkpoint/rename the old one? I’m starting to fear that my only option is to restore the old backup, make a backup in iTunes, and then manage storage of that backup manually which is a pain that I hoped iCloud would be able to prevent…

In an answer to another question, I read:

  You can have multiple backups in iCloud for a device and choose which backup to restore from (assuming there are no device/iOS compatibility issues).

My question is: how? ;-)

You can't fork a backup on the iCloud servers.

All you can do is delete the existing backup and then start one over. Over time, abandoned forked backups get pruned and deleted as well, so keep that in mind if you manage to separate things.

Disable iCloud Backup without deleting existing backup?

Go to iCloud settings -> back up -> back up now


How to disable the Character Viewer in Big Sur? How should I change shortcut or disable emoji menu by ctrl+cmd+space. Is it possible?

How should I change shortcut or disable emoji menu by ctrl+cmd+space. Is it possible?

Yes, it's possible, and you can change the default keyboard shortcut to something else in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts
Click the [+] button and in the sheet that appears...

Set Application: to: All Applications
Set Menu Title: to: Emoji & Symbols

Use the actual menu title as it shows on the Edit menu on the menu bar, based on your Language & Region settings. In this example it's English.

Set Keyboard Shortcut to e.g.: ⌃⇧⌘Space

After setting focus to it, press the keyboard shortcut you'd like to use. Once you've pressed the keys, click the Add button.

Note: Assigning global shortcuts can be problematic, and you'll need to use a keyboard shortcut that is not already assigned in whatever application has focus when pressing the new keyboard shortcut.

This is Character Viewer.
This is very handy tool for entering special characters. In order to get rid of emojis one can change settings:

click on on icon upper right.

This will open expanded view.

click on down arrow icon left upper.

Dropdown menu will be displayed.

click on 'Customize list'

'Select categories' window will open

Select/Deselect needed categories and click 'Done'

Switch back to compact view using icon on upper right corner

Character Viewer 'remembers' you choice and your sceenshot indicates that you have selected 'emoji' menu as default (have look at the footer on your screenshot). If you want display 'Frequently Used' and 'Favorites' by default (like on my screenshots) click on clock icon in footer (leftmost). Next time you invoke Character Viewer it opens there.


Is it possible to spell a word to Siri? Is it possible to spell a word to Siri? For instance, if I ask for the stock price of a certain company, she doesn't always understand the company name.

Try saying: "no caps on, no space on", then spell the word, then say "no caps off, no space off".

I'm afraid that's not possible. You can't force Siri. At least, not yet.


MBP w/ OS X 10.8.3 Performing Quite Slowly Lately My MBP (2.66 GHz i7, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD) is about two or so years old. It's been running like a champ for most of its life. However, within the past few months, I've noticed a considerable degradation in the speed and responsiveness of the computer as a whole.

I figured this might be a disk problem - so I ran the disk utility and it produced no noticeable improvement after a repair. Then I figured it might be a RAM usage problem - and I monitor and purge my RAM as often as I can (although I've not had to do this in the past). I figured it may be a problem with the system files, so I reinstalled OS X.

After all of that, the computer is still pretty slow. When I have only Chrome and iTunes running (with a handful of non-intensive small programs in addition), the computer will still operate at a snail's pace and use up almost all of its 4GB of RAM.

I'm seemingly out of options to attempt to improve the performance of my computer to the level that it was about a year ago. Any help?

One of the first thing Apple technical support will have you do is to create a new user: log out of your current user, log into the new user and see if that helps. Toss a restart in as well.

You can try using the OnyX maintenance tool to speed up your mac.

Download for 10.8 here: http://joel.barriere.pagesperso-orange.fr/dl/108/OnyX.dmg


Blocking information on my iPad from other people I recently purchased an iPad that I allow my employees to have access to for Spotify, Sirius, etc. but not my email, texts and personal files.  I used my Apple ID setup the iPad so now they can see my personal info.

Is there a way to hide my personal info?  Or can I create another Apple ID and still keep my old one.

You probably could solve this with turning your iPad into a managed device and configuring it from your Mac/PC. For a single device this may be overkill though, I would just restore the iPad to factory settings and set it up with a new AppleID specific for that device.

The iPad is a single user system. I think the simplest solution is to buy the $325 iPad for others to use.  Be sure to keeps the receipts for all iDevices.

edit:  Guided access may be what you are looking for.  It allows you to temporarially  lock the device to one app.  You need to enter a password to get out of guided access. Download some other web browser.  Lock the device to that web browser.

To start Guided Access:

Launch the Settings App.
Go to General and choose Accessibility.
Turn Guided Access On.
Set a passcode.
Launch the app you want lock the device into.
Triple-click the Home button.
You can choose to disable touch or motion in addition to disabling the Home and volume buttons.
Tap the Start button.

https://learninginhand.com/blog/limit-an-ios-device-to-running-a-single-app.html

You could do all your working in one of these all-in-one apps.

All in one Applications that emphasize security
Good Collaboration Suite
"Secure mobile app-to-app collaboration.

The Good Collaboration Suite includes Good for Enterprise, Good Share and Good Connect secure mobile apps, simplifying access to email, calendar, contacts, tasks, instant messaging, browsing and document sharing. These apps are built using Good’s next-gen containerization   that includes secure data sharing between any Good secured app as well as app-level encryption independent of the device used."
http://www1.good.com/applications/

Quip -- General all-in-on App
"Quip is a modern word processor that enables you to create beautiful documents on any device, including the iPad, iPhone, and the desktop. It combines documents and messages into a single chat-like “thread” of updates — making collaboration easy."
https://itunes.apple.com/app/quip/id647922896

MobileIron's Docs@Work
" content administrators can proactively push important content to a user's device. All content is securely stored, synchronized and available for offline viewing."
https://www.mobileiron.com/en/node/1050


iTunes (version 12.3.1.23) doesn't play my TV Shows/Movies! iTunes doesn't play my tv shows or movies anymore. The timeline moves forward but the screen remains black and there is no audio! I already tried to deauthorise and reauthorise my macbook but nothing seems to work...

A lot of people are experiencing the same issue. It seems to have occurred after the most recent security update (for Yosemite 10.10.5 this is security update 2015-005. There is a discussion on apple support but nobody from Apple has bothered to respond yet. Deauthorization, moving files in and out of library, re-downloading videos from the iTunes store, etc. have not helped anyone. System logs indicate there is an error and those people who've posted the log passages on the error show that it seems to be the same among those experiencing the problem. Some people have advised downgrading to an earlier iTunes version. However, I'm figuring since a lot of people are experiencing it, Apple will have to come up with a fix that will cause less problems than a downgrade...


A better way to remove keyboard grease from a MacBook Air's normal keyboard? The grease stain on a black keyboard looks awful. What are the recommended steps to remove the grease?

I have found some posts online suggesting pure alcohol as a solvent. (one such CNET forum)

Is this advice trustworthy?

The ideal solution (that I've found after years of cleaning Apple products) is not to use alcohol directly. Instead, mix it with water. The proportion to mix is simple:

Three parts isopropyl alcohol
Seven parts water

I use a bottle cap, fill it with alcohol three times then the same cap with water seven times (you can use something bigger if you want more).

With that solution, you're safe to clean all your mac and the alcohol presence guarantees a slow but secure grease removal without leaving the typical alcohol stain/residue that occurs when you use pure alcohol. Also the low concentration makes it safer against things that may get damaged by the usage of pure alcohol like rubber compounds or human skin.

For occasional cleanup you can use the simple, free and excellent Keyboard Cleaner. All it does is make your screen black (so you can clean it better) and lock your keyboard so you don't trigger accidental keys while cleaning. Of course, you can always shutdown the computer too.

Regarding products like iKlear and such, they are ok, in fact I'd recommend you always get a bottle of iKlear around, it's good to have and their small wet towels are very handy for quick clean. Remember never to use toilet/kitchen paper, use instead any "approved" cloth (like iKlear, TomBihn, etc.) the "micro fibers" are designed to not scratch your surface.

I wouldn't use pure alcohol.

The recommendation from apple website is to use a wet wipes (for clean kitchen, etc) ;)
I am using, and it works great!


A tech from MacKeeper wishes access to my computer for licensing and activation. Is this a scam? I paid for a version of MacKeeper which may be a mistake. Their tech  wants me to allow them to access my computer as in have access to my desktop files, etc. They say it is to fully license and engage the program . I have not done it as of yet.

Is this typical when activating? I'm not comfortable letting them have control of my computer

Do not do this.
There are exactly zero reasons a tech, or anyone else for that matter, would need remote access to your computer to "fully license and engage a program."
That phrasing alone is more than enough to elicit a high degree of skepticism of the intention and/or competence of the "tech" who is looking to access your computer.
For just a brief (hypothetical) moment; giving the "tech" the benefit of the doubt and assuming his motives are genuine, how good can this software be that it needs special handling to activate?
Bottom line...
You don't need this software, avoid it.

Lots of other answers go on to rightfully focus on the scam-ish aspects of the MacKeeper world. And Harper points out you might not even have a legitimate copy of MacKeeper and how anyone demanding access via phone is a scammer. But there is a much simpler answer to this question that you yourself provided:

  I paid for a version of MacKeeper which may be a mistake.

If you yourself are stating that something might be a mistake, it is a mistake. Go with your gut and trust your instincts on this one.

Now at this point, you already paid for MacKeeper. Which is one level of mistake. See how you can uninstall it and perhaps get a refund for the purchase. But don’t take the next step and dive deeper into this nonsense. They—whoever is on the other end of the phone—might be aggressive in trying to get you to give them access, but don’t fall for it.

And heck, if this is a fraudulent version of MacKeeper—which is questionable software itself—then try to uncover that. If it is indeed a fake piece of software, then you can contact your credit card company and claim a refund based on fraud.

But at the end of the day, you are experiencing a rightful fit of buyer’s remorse. Just be sure you don’t go any deeper into this nonsense.


Is there any way to use a USB camera connected to an iPhone? I've got an iPhone and I've got a USB camera. Is there any way to plug the camera into the iPhone and use it as the source camera for Facebook Live or other camera related items?

You should plug both your iPhone and camera to your computer. Then you sync the pictures from the camera to your iPhone. I think this is the only way it can work. Good luck!

you can search "uvc webcam to lightning"


NTFS Read/Write Broken Under El Capitan? I'm trying to enable macOS El Capitan's built in read/write support for NTFS, but it doesn't seem to be working. First of all; I'm aware it's not the fastest, and no officially supported, but my needs for it aren't critical (nor the data super important, it's just games).

Anyway, I've followed the usual guides to enabling support, and my /etc/fstab looks like:

UUID=E2E3FA2C-5B6D-4510-B4F6-E370A09B0AF6       none    ntfs    rw,auto,nobrowse

However, when attempting to mount the drive with diskutil mount disk0s9 I get the following error:

Volume on disk0s9 failed to mount
If the volume is damaged, try the "readOnly" option

If I remove the fstab entry the volume mounts just fine in read-only mode, and under Windows I can confirm that it is undamaged. It's strange as this is the exact method I've used successfully in the past (not with the same partition though).

Here's the diskutil info output for the partition:

Device Identifier:        disk0s9
Device Node:              /dev/disk0s9
Whole:                    No
Part of Whole:            disk0
Device / Media Name:      Windows_NTFS_Untitled_2

Volume Name:              Games

Mounted:                  No

File System Personality:  NTFS
Type (Bundle):            ntfs
Name (User Visible):      Windows NT File System (NTFS)

Partition Type:           Microsoft Basic Data
OS Can Be Installed:      No
Media Type:               Generic
Protocol:                 SATA
SMART Status:             Verified
Volume UUID:              E2E3FA2C-5B6D-4510-B4F6-E370A09B0AF6
Disk / Partition UUID:    0C407B03-62D7-4C64-BC5C-3C57668C2F2E

Total Size:               249.2 GB (249152208896 Bytes) (exactly 486625408 512-Byte-Units)
Volume Free Space:        0 B (0 Bytes) (exactly 0 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

Read-Only Media:          No
Read-Only Volume:         Not applicable (not mounted)

Device Location:          Internal
Removable Media:          No

Solid State:              Yes

In case it may be relevant; the partition was formatted natively by Windows 10.

The only suspicious thing to me is the device/media name of Windows_NTFS_Untitled_2, whereas for a Windows OS partition it is 'Basic data partition', but I'm sure that's important.

Any ideas why this isn't mounting in read/write mode? I had hoped to use built-in support to avoid having to install FUSE etc., which I assume still involves disabling system integrity protection?

Duplicate

This issue is not a duplicate as proposed; the other issue only asks how to enable read/write, however I already know how I'm supposed to be able to do it using the built-in driver, but am unable to do-so. In other words this question is asking why setting the rw option in /etc/fstab no longer appears to work (and how it can be fixed), rather than how can I get read/write support in the first place.

It is absolutely not an exact duplicate of the proposed original.

afaik (ntfs) writing is not supported in osx and macos.
use a ntfs driver, check its compatibility for your os.


I have a recovery partition but OS X doesn't use it for recovery I need to start my El Capitan OS X in Recovery Mode to run csrutil disable.
When I restart holding cmdR the Mac directly boots to Internet Recovery Mode. But I need a local recovery partition because the online version doesn't provide csrutil!

I check if I lost my local recovery partition but it seems present.

➜  ~ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            250.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

Any suggestion what I can do to re-enable my recovery partition?

If can not boot to your recovery partition, there are two alternate ways to enable/disable SIP.

Create a USB flash drive installer. You can plug the flash drive
into the USB port and restart with the alt/option key held down. To
create the flash drive, you will need to download El Capitan from
the App Store. You do not reinstall El Capitan. Instead you use
the instruction given here to create the flash drive.
The other alternative would be to install rEFInd. During
booting you can select to enable/disable SIP. You would not have to
actually install rEFInd to your internal disk. You can install rEFInd
to a flash drive as well. See here for more information.

The advantage to the first method is the flash drive completely replaces your Recovery Partition. In other words, everything you can do once booted from the internal recovery partition will be available when booted from the flash drive. Of course, this requires downloading all of El Capitan which is several Gigabytes in size. If you have a slow internet connection speed, then the second method, involving installing rEFInd to a flash drive, would be a more favorable option.

I use http://musings.silvertooth.us/2014/07/recovery-partition-creator-3-8/ to rewrite my recovery partition from el captian installation download from app store.

Thanks @David Anderson for good indication


What are some undocumented iPhone features? With included documentation as sparse as Apple's, there are plenty of them...

When using the keyboard, if you tap the 123 button, and slide your finger (without lifting it) to any number or punctuation symbol, when you lift your finger the keyboard will return to the alphabetic keyboard automatically. One less tap!

You can take screenshots by pressing the Home + Lock (Sleep) buttons. The screenshots are added to your camera roll. After pressing the key combination, the screen flashes white for a second to notify you that it has taken a screenshot.

originally submitted by Blaenk on Super User.


How to send S/MIME encrypted mails from iOS with attachment? I can only send encrypted mails if I start the mail app directly. But if I try to send a mail from the image gallery, the mails are neither signed nor encrypted (and I can't find a way to enable that).

Edit: My current (non-acceptable) workaround would be to save the mail as a draft, then open the draft with the default mail app and then send it.

I can tell you why this happens but not give you a solution. To me this is a bug, when you 'mail' from within photos or whatever other app, using the modal compose window (the one that pops up from the bottom of the screen) you are using a MFMailComposeViewController class, this is effectively a baby version of mail that pops up and composes mail for you, then redirects this to the mail app.

Something is broken in between that's causing your issue.

Bottom line the MFMailComposeViewController (https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/MessageUI/Reference/MFMailComposeViewController_class/Reference/Reference.html) is not the full mail client and thus it's lacking the encryption piece.

I recommend that you go with a VPN Service. You can find a good number of VPN service providers over iTunes, and you don't need encryption after that, as your data will be absolutely secure. Hide My Ass, Astrill etc are good and easy to use VPN services. You can chose to go with any of them.


How to disable top bar of the iOS keyboard? I would like to remove following top white bar of the onscreen iOS 11 keyboard on my iPad.

I tried to disable all keyboard options in settings but has no effect.

Such bar appears for example when I open a chat in full web (not a mobile view), search something via input field on the top right corner of the page, then go back and trying to post something to the chat:

As you can see this keyboard bar overlaps text input area. So it’s hard to use it.

Try changing your keyboard to an alternative keyboard (like Google Keyboard) and change it back to the original keyboard.


How to install Octave in OS X 10.9 I had previously used macports to install octave. It was working fine after switching to 10.9, but after the upgrade I tried to add a different package and it did not work. So I foolishly followed the instructions to delete and reinstall everything, and now octave will not reinstall!

I don't care how I get octave on my computer. I just really really need a working copy of it for this weekend. Any suggestions (for a beginner) would be really useful.

You can also use Homebrew for installing octave.
I find homebrew more clean and less intrusion than macports as it uses the system libraries available if possible.

Following the instructions on Octave wiki

brew tap homebrew/science
brew update && brew upgrade
brew install octave --without-docs

You might want to try this download from SourceForge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/octave/


Easiest way to send multiple iWork attachments as Office documents My grandmother just switched from a PC to a Mac, and I suggested that she use iWork instead of Office for Mac. Now she is getting used to iWork, but all of the people that she works with use Office.

When she wants to send multiple documents, I told her that she has to open each one and got to Share => Export -> Word and save them to her desktop. After that she needs to attach each one to the email.

As I'm telling her this, I think to myself "There has to be a better way..."

So, I come here to ask: Is there a better way? Is there some way to make Mail convert these .pages documents into .docx, .keynote into .pptx, etc.? I always thought that's what "Send Windows Friendly Attachments" did, but I have found out that it does something totally different.

The sending of windows friendly attachments doesn't change the file, but it changes how Apple encodes the files into text for transmission. (think using tar and gzip instead of uuencode and compress).

If you send many documents in Word format, there's nothing preventing you from storing them all to the filesystem as .doc (or .docx) and letting pages import them when she edits. That way she does the conversion only when she needs to modify a file as opposed to having to do the conversion at send time.

Try iWork Converter, http://tyorex.com/iWorkConverter.
It can batch convert Pages files to doc, convert Numbers to xls, convert Keynote to ppt.


What is SIMBL Agent and why is it running on my machine? Is this something loaded by Apple or did it come with some third party app I must have downloaded.

SIMBL is not a part of Apple's Mac OS X package, but is an extension that can be used by other developers in their own work to extend applications where they may not have the original source code (like Safari). SIMBL-related files can be found either in /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins or ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins.

It is usually used by SafariFlvSniffer.bundle which comes with a video downloader app.


Apple Music on Apple TV 3? Is it possible to get Apple Music on Apple TV 3? I can stream to it from my iMac, but it would be nice to be able to launch Apple Music from TV directly...

No, previous versions of the AppleTV do not support the new Apple Music service.   In order to use the service with AppleTV, you'll need to either 1) stream from a compatible device, such as an iPhone / iPad / Mac, or 2) upgrade to the latest 4th generation AppleTV.

I may be possible o use Apple Music on the 3rd generation Apple TV.  I expect that you would have to get an 4th generation Apple TV, hack it to access the files for the Music app, then hack the 3rd gen Apple TV to install the Music app.  Then hack it some more to get it to run the Music app.  Might I suggest that with less effort you could save the money to upgrade to the 4th generation Apple TV in a few months.  Patience.


Change Apple ID from "only valid for purchases in" another country I've an iPhone 7 Plus. I already created my Apple ID in Sri Lanka. Now I live in Japan. I want to set my App Store country/region to Japan. How do I do it?

You can change your App Store country with the Support document by Apple which is given below. Please note that all your current subscriptions will be cancelled.

On your device, tap Settings > [your name] > iTunes & App Store.
Tap your Apple ID.  If you're not signed in, sign in with the Apple ID and password that you use with the iTunes Store.
Tap View Apple ID. You might be asked to authenticate your Apple ID.
Tap Country/Region.
Tap your new country or region, then tap Next.
Review the Terms and Conditions and Apple Privacy Policy, then tap Agree if you agree.
In the prompt that appears, tap Agree.
Select a payment method and enter your payment information.
Enter your billing address and tap Next.

Change your Apple ID country or region

Go to "settings"
select "General"
select "language and region"
select "Region" and change to Japan


How can I convert a DMG to ISO on Mac OS X (preferably for free)? I have medical records within Windows software within a DMG disk image. How can I convert the DMG to an ISO format on Mac OS X? Is it possible to do it within Disk Utility or CLI easily, or do I need an external utility?

You can use hdiutil to convert from .dmg to .iso directly:

$ hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o [filename].iso [filename].dmg

Renaming .cdr to .iso is bad advice! An .iso has a slightly different format that allows PC users to play the DVD as well. A renamed file will work on macOS, but NOT on a PC.

If you have a .cdr and want to convert it to an .iso, execute:

$ hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o [filename].iso [filename].cdr


No boot-args in nvram After seeing this question regarding the serverperfmode nvram boot-arg, I thought I would check my server to see its status:

$ nvram boot-args
nvram: Error getting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) data was not found

Is this a normal response (i.e., if no boot-args have been set), or is something out of whack with my server.  Apple's support page doesn't mention the error.

My server is a Mac Pro running 10.11.6, off of a internal SSD.  And, Server.app is installed/configured.

Output of nvram -p shows the following variables:

efi-boot-device
bluetoothInternalControllerInfo
fmm-computer-name
efi-apple-recovery
SystemAudioVolumeDB
bluetoothActiveControllerInfo
SystemAudioVolume
eft-boot-device-data
BootCampProcessorPstates

This is indeed the normal response if the variable has not been set.
Example commands and output along your line of inquiry:

$ nvram boot-args
  boot-args serverperfmode=1 -v

Whereas:

$ nvram bootargs        # missing character results in: non existing variable
  nvram: Error getting variable - 'bootargs': (iokit/common) data was not found

This is the same state for this variable you get after deleting the whole variable or after clearing all variables with an NVRAM reset.

And if nvram -p does show nothing but what you posted then such a procedure was quite recent.

To test for 'normality':

$ nvram -p                        # print all nvram variables
boot-args serverperfmode 1 -v     # output if only boot-args is set
$ sudo nvram -d boot-args         # delete nvram variable for boot-args
$ nvram -p                        # print all nvram variables
                                  # nothing to output
$ nvram boot-args                 # try to read only boot-args variable
nvram: Error getting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) data was not found # your error message
$ sudo nvram boot-args="-v"       # set boot-args to verbose boot mode
$ nvram -p                        # print all nvram variables
boot-args -v                      # output for nvram variable boot-args shown
$ nvram boot-args                 # print only boot-args nvram variable
boot-args -v

I use the following to enable verbose boot: (may need to disable system protection)

#!/bin/bash
nvram -p
echo "Enabling Verbose Boot Now..."
sudo nvram boot-args="-v"
nvram -p

Only the sudo lineis need the others are to monitor the change.


Line In Headset's Microphone Not Receiving Input I'm using Windows 10 (32 bit) with Boot Camp on an early 2009 iMac.

I recently got an X2 from Ovann (http://ovann.com/c2223.html) and looks like this (http://phongvu.vn/gallery/avatar_upload/products/storage/32083_ovann-x2-proo.jpg)

I've tried this on OS X and on Windows and checked the recording devices; it seems that whenever I talk or test the microphone it doesn't get any input.

I've solved it! The only thing I needed to do was find a good line-in to USB adapter and then use it.

The one I got was this one.


How can I rip a DVD so that it has multiple audio tracks and subtitles available when synced with my iPad? I'm in the process of ripping my DVD collection to disk for backup, syncing with my iPad, and protecting from my toddlers.

I'd like to have the commentary (if available) and subtitles with the video file, but I do not want the subtitles burned in.

I can't figure out how to make any of the programs I usually do this with work with the iPad. RipIt provides that beautiful .dvdmedia file from which I can simply watch the DVD in DVD Player.app but it's compress feature doesn't bring over anything but the default audio track and it doesn't deal with subtitles. HandBrake provides the option of Burning in the subtitles, which is not what I want, but when I don't burn in the subtitles, the iPad seems to be unable to deal with them, even though I believe QuickTime X does know what to do. Of course, VLC or any other reasonably powerful video player can display them just fine.

Short of encoding them twice, is there a way to get what I want?

You could check out subler, it's a great .mp4 swiss army knife, and supports soft subtitles. I've used it with success with my Apple TV 2, and it work without issue, although I haven't tried on my iPad yet.

Have you looked at RipIt? It rips DVD's with all of its features. You're essentially creating a disc image with the same data as the DVD. You can play this file in DVD Player. RipIt has a compress feature that compresses the DVD video into an iTunes/iOS friendly format. I am not 100% sure, but I believe subtitles are included in the file. You can check out their website and try the app for free.


How to quit an app in OS X Yosemite I have this annoying BitTorrent app that won't quit. I first tried right clicking and force quit from dock. It does show 'App not responding', however, on clicking 'Force quit' nothing happens, and the app persists in the dock with the black dot below:

So I next opened 'Force Quit' from Apple menu, and clicking it launches the list of processes open, and sure there I see BitTorrent. However, same here, on force quitting it, nothing happens, the app name is still there in the list of open apps.

So I next open Activity monitor, and check if it is there. However, as you can see, it is not there:

However, if I switch to the energy tab, I see BitTorrent there, but it shows as disabled, and consequently I am unable to quit it by clicking the cancel button at the top left (which is disabled):

So I login to my terminal, and type top to see whether the app shows up, and it doesn't.

Then I try launchctl list to see which things were launched by Apple at startup, and spot something like com.bittorrent.BitTorrent.307036. So I run sudo launchctl remove com.bittorrent.BitTorrent.307036, and still nothing happens, the app remains frozen in the dock.

Finally, I tried killall -9 Dock and it does nothing. This is happening quite frequently off late. Last day it happened to my Outlook app, I had to restart to get rid of it. How do I solve this problem?

Your last screenshot is showing the apps that were running in the past 8 hours. You can try running ps -e | grep -i bittorrent in Terminal.app to confirm, but it doesn't appear to be running at this time. Relaunching the Dock should make the icon disappear, unless it's a side effect of autotermination:

  In Lion [and subsequent versions of OS X], an ostensibly "running" application may have no associated process (because the operating system automatically terminated it in order to reclaim resources) and an application may have a process even when it doesn't appear to be running. Applications without processes. Processes without applications. Did Lion just blow your mind?

I would suggest uninstalling the BitTorrent, and then using a light weight torrent such as uTorrent instead.
If you can't uninstall using the normal methods, use AppCleaner ( http://www.freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ ) - this should sort it for you and force the app to close without harm.


Why do I have duplicate groups in Contacts app on my iPhone? If I open the Contacts app on my iPhone I get duplicate groups, hence duplicate contacts.
I started to delete one of a duplicate contact but they both gone away.
I thought I could solve this problem going on my Mac and delete the duplicate groups but there I don't have duplicates.

I'm using iCloud for syncing contactes between my MacBook Pro and iPhone.

How can I solve this problem?

The best procedure is to one by one, turn off each cloud sync source of contacts.

They will remain in the cloud and be removed one by one from your iPhone.

When you have all cloud accounts turned off as far as injecting contacts into the contact app, you will be left with only the local groups and contacts stored on the device itself. If you don't wish to have a local contact on the phone, sync and delete these from a computer (or manually from the device).

At that point, re-establish the cloud sync for each account - checking that there are no duplicates after each addition.

Once you have eliminated the possibility of duplicates locally vs. cloud - you can quite easily clean up the cloud source of duplicates if needed.

POSSIBLE CAUSE?

I had the dreaded double-grouping happen this week.

T-Mobile sent me a new iPhone 5 due to a battery issue.  After the SIM card was switched and the new iphone booted, I had the old iPhone turned on so I could see what all apps I had loaded and could configure the screens/accounts manually.  (I know, I can go through the backup/restore, but had other reasons not to.)  The old iPhone was still connected to my WiFi.

After sitting overnight, I woke up to duplicated groups.  ALL of them.

I am wondering if having the old phone online w/ iCloud at the same time contributed to the duplication?


When shaking my MacBook I hear a strange sound, like a wobble I recently bought a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015).

When I shake it vertically, some slow sounds come from it and it sounds like something wobbles in it.

Is this normal?

Your Macbook Pro should not be making any noise when you shake it, but there are a few things it could be: either the screen is moving ever so slightly or the internal fan is just moving when you shake it. If it is neither of those things (which the fan thing is unlikely so you have to decipher wether or not is it the screen) I would take it into an Apple store. It is most likely a minor issue like a loose screw or the like but if it is under warranty and there is an Apple store near by there is no harm.

Sameee!!!! I went to the Apple Store and they said there is nothing wrong. They even told me to shake the in-store ones to prove to me, but they don't have the sound. Apparently, its part of the "moving mechanisms". Which is BS


App or Service to Automatically Backup Photos in iCloud Photo Library? This is my situation:

MacBook and iPhone both using Photos.app and both using iCloud Photo Library
Neither device has enough local storage to keep the originals, so they're both set to the Optimize Storage option
I'd like an automated backup solution for the photo collection in iCloud Photo Library...

I've read How do I backup photos *from* iCloud Photo Library - along with other Q&As and pages, so I'm aware I could do things like:

Change the location of the library on the Mac, to an external drive, and switch the setting to *Download Originals...
Use iCloud.com to download photos, on any machine with a big hard disk or the current Mac, to an external drive...

What I'd prefer is an automated backup process. I know that iCloud Photo Library is fairly new; does anyone know of a Mac app, or an online service, that uses a user's iCloud credentials to take regular backups?

Turn on automatic backups.
Whenever plugged in, locked, and connected to wifi, the device will backup.

Call Apple if you are not sure how to turn on backups.


Will using the iphone camera flash as a flashlight for long periods harm it in any way? We have an old iPhone 4 that we use as a music machine in a spare room.  Will using the flash as a nightlight overnight cause any damage?

My guess is no, but a part of me (maybe thinking of old camera flashes) thinks I should ask first.

Thanks.

I would say no for two reasons,

The flash on an iPhone is an LED which unlike old camera flashes doesn't mind running for extended periods of time.
Flashlight use isn't limited by iOS. If the letting the flash run for a while would break the phone apple wouldn't allow you to do so or at the very least set a timer to turn it off after so long.

The only problem T could see is the bulb will eventually burn out, but considering you don't seem to need the camera anyway that probably isn't an issue for you.

Ya led bulb should last years in theory. but they do fail sometimes. especially when left in hot environment (closed up car)


How do I change the time format used by ls command line on osx? I want to make ls display time in ISO format (military format). How can I change this behavior?

On Linux I knew that I could force ls to display time in long format by usin --full-time but this doesn't work on OS X.

Update: I know that the format used by the command is based on the locale settings. The problem is that on OS X I was not able to use the trick of setting LC_TIME=en_DK.

If you install gnu coreutils then gnu ls is available, which will do as required. If you use brew as a package manager, it's as simple as:

brew install coreutils
gls -l --time-style=full-iso

ls -l --time-style=iso works fine for me.


Wine, Wineskin, or Winebottler for IOS? I've survived for two months or more without my MacBook Pro but I really miss a Windows app called Azuon.  With that, I'd set up a search in ten seconds, start it, and come back a half-hour later to find what would have taken me days with Kayak, SkyScanner, Adioso, Momondo, Matrix, Rome2Rio, etc.

I did a web search but the only hit was an Italian video that had "IOS" in the title but had a MacOS screen for the whole first minute.  I can read Italian, but I can't follow it as audio without the help of lip reading.

So, I'm wondering if anyone knows of a way to run Windows apps on IOS.  (Actually run them on IOS, not on a networked Windows host via RDP, Citrix, VNC, etc.)

I can't even try to port Wine myself, since I don't have anything to run XCode on.

There is no Wine or similar for iOS. Besides probably being in conflict with Apple's Guidelines iPhones/iPads are not running on Intel chips so the Windows binaries wouldn't be usable anyway.

Having said that, there are apps like Hipmunk, Kayak etc. available for iOS which provide flight search functionality.

I see no one else has suggested WIneskin!  FInd out more at http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-index.php., or Codeweavers Crossover check out at www.paulthetall.com, or perhaps Wine BOttler, just google it.


I cannot open an iCloud account on my device because ‘the maximum number of free accounts have been activated’ I cannot open iCloud account on my device. When the Apple ID & password are input, I get this message:

  The maximum number of free accounts have been activated on this iPhone.

Is your iPhone second handed? Probably the previous user has used all accounts. All you have to do is setup iCloud on any iPhone or iPad that has not been setup to iCloud or has remaining setup for iCloud and then sign in on blocked device.
I've done this with all my devices and all work fine.

No max number of free accounts are activated


How can I make my Mac accept a user password of 8 characters? I just unboxed my new MacBook Pro, running Yosemite 10.10.5. When I went through the setup procedure, it didn't ask me what password to use for my account, and just set it to that of my AppleID. (I only discovered that by trial and error.)

I now want to set my password to the same one that I use on the old Mac; but the password (eight characters, includes some digits, which BTW is also exactly true of my AppleID password) is rejected.

When I simply run passwd while logged in as myself, it fails saying:

  passwd: general failure

And when I run it as sudo passwd mike, it is more precise:

  passwd: Password change failed because password is too short.  Password change failed because password is too short.

(Yes, it says it twice.)

It also does this when I use 13-character password. It doesn't say how long a password it requires and I am not minded to determine this by trial and error.

How can I force my Mac to accept the password of my choice?

Try to change it by going to System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> your account, and click on Change Password...

Try using System Preferences.  Under Users & Groups, you can select your account and click "Change Password...".  You will be asked for your current password.  This should work, although if you set up your Mac to use your iCloud login, then you may run into some difficulties.

If you're trying to set a password and System Preferences doesn't like it, the most risky way, but at the same time the most accepting way for short password is the command line.

Open Terminal:

sudo su -
sudo passwd mike

You can then change your password to whatever you want, even a 1 character password.  This is not recommended, but if System Preferences rejectes you, the command line will take it this way.


No entry sign on MacBook pro when installing snow leopard from 'new' disc onto new HD My HD died on my MacBook pro so I decided to change the HD myself. I didn't have the original snow leopard disc so got a copy from a friend. When I try to boot from disc (holding c) is runs the DVD drive, followed by apple symbol. After a short while, the apple symbol is replaced by a no entry symbol. Totally at a loss as to what to do. Tried different copies of the copied disc, but same issue.

Any thoughts?

Is your friend's Snow Leopard disk one he got with a Mac, or one he purchased at retail?

Disks that came with Macs are hardware-specific, if it came from a different model/revision than your MacBook Pro, then it likely won't work.

Try your install with a retail disk (or a Lion/Mountain Lion installer on USB) and see if that works.

Was your machine delivered with Snow Leopard? Apple made Lion and Mountain Lion machines either incompatible with, or block the installation of Snow Leopard - even refurbs that once could have run SL.


MacBook has 2 guest accounts, one with a password that I never set My MacBook Air that I've owned for just days has its own guest account, with its own password. This happened to me once before back in 2013 on a MacBook Pro. Typically, I disable the guest account. However, I recently purchased an open-box MacBook Air from Best Buy. I noticed that sometimes, but not every time, a pixelated Guest account would appear next to my user account when logging in, as seen below:

Now most of you might tell me that if I have iCloud & Find My Mac enabled, then the Guest account is there by default. This I'm perfectly aware of, and when I enable Find My Mac, this is what I get:

Once again, we have a pixelated guest account which is password protected, and then the guest account enabled with Find My Mac (on the far right) which doesn't require a password.

What is going on here?

If I purchased a open box computer, The first thing I would do is erase the entire internal drive and reinstall the operating system.

My preferred method, for erasing and reinstalling, is to use a flash drive. The instructions are given at How to create a bootable installer for macOS.

Once booted from the flash drive, I usually erase all previous partitions and create a single partition for the installation of macOS. This can be done by using Disk Utility application included on the flash drive. More information can be found at How to reinstall macOS. Look for the section "Decide whether to erase your startup disk".

The guest account means you have "Find My Mac" on. Turn off "Find My Mac" and it will disappear.


Using the same Apple ID on private and business iPhone I have a private and now a company iPhone. I like to have two phones to seperate business and private.

I need to install an app from the Apple Store on my business iPhone, so I need an Apple ID on this phone. Obviously, I already have a private one.

Currently, I do not sync any data with iCloud (but Google, which will not be configured on my business device), so I wonder if there is any disadvantage of using my private Apple ID on my business phone?

My company allows the use of a private Apple ID. In particular what I want to know, if I use my Apple ID will my company be able to influence or monitor anything on my private phone (iPhone search, etc).

There are two separate questions here but hopefully they won’t get mixed if I’m careful about wording things:

Your company can install MDM profiles and unless they do, you only expose what addresses and traffic you send when you connect to their network or VPN or install their apps. Apple protects you since there are no hidden backdoors and if you have a company MDM - you will see it in the profile portion of the settings app and it has to list what it does.
You can choose to use a private AppleID in the App Store and that won’t let the business see what you do in the store other than seeing the side effects.

With MDM - they can see all apps installed - so if you installed a sports betting or game - they would see that IF they have MDM or if they see that app talking to the servers that run that app.
They can send apps to your phone on iOS 11 without needing you to be signed in, so it’s up to them if you should use an AppleID or just use MDM to push the “work apps”
Work can erase the device but not get data from it with MDM in general. Unless they get your passcode or you back up to their servers, Apple ensures data is secure with your password so unless they have surveillance or a key logger on a computer and capture your password - your password and account is yours and it’s your choice to use it on a work device or not.

So - If you really want to keep work from personal - sign up for and maintain a work AppleID so you don’t mix the streams. For many people, using a personal AppleID for just the App Store is super low risk and you can manage to not auto install apps and control what app history you wish to share with work. Without MDM, they can’t modify settings, wipe the device, lock the device, unlock the device. With MDM they can do those things, but you will see they can do it and ask about their policies so you can make a good choice.

I wouldn’t mix normal AppleID like messages or Photos or iCloud or GameCenter with work and pleasure - this answer just is about apps and access to app data. That second item could leak more data like contacts or conversations you would rather be yours.

You're able to switch between Apple ID's on 1 phone when you want to install a particular app. Just keep in mind what Apple ID your currently using when installing new apps.


How can I change the default save location of Office for Mac? I have Office for Mac 2011 and unlike Office PC, I can't find how to change the location where my files are to be saved.

The default position doesn't suit my needs and I spend a lot of time "navigating" to the folder where I store all my projects.

I would like to open a file, edit it's contents, and "save as" a different file name, but to the same file folder from which the document was originally opened... just like you can on a PC.

The File Locations preference pane allows to to specify the location for all documents to be saved.

In Word Preferences... select File Locations:

When in File Locations, set the path you want Word to use by clicking in the Location field. The default setting, which appears blank in the screencap below, is to ~/Documents.

It's not in Apple preferences but in Word's own Preferences. See the drop down menu of Word in top left corner while the program is running, not the Apple symbol.


How can I backup an Application in the applications folder? I was wondering what will happen if I copy the content of an application in the applications folder, compress it and move it to another hard drive. Will it work if I put it in the Application's folder again, uncompressed? Will it work in other macs?

EDIT: Ok. Now I understand there are at least two kind of applications; One kind uses an installer and the other simply a copy mechanism.

The second kind can be backed up my copy the Application.App. But, for the former one, how can I get a backup for Photoshop and stuff like that?

Generally, yes, since most applications are installed through copying the application from a DMG file into your Applications folder. However, this is not always the case, since applications can also be installed through the use of OS X Installer or a 3rd party installer.

As a rule of thumb, if an application was installed through an installer, copying the .app from the Applications folder won't be enough.

If you wish to backup an application that came from an installer, you will usually require that installer. If you have a valid license for the software (e.g. Photoshop) you can redownload the installer from Adobe's website and use that to install it.

When you entered your key into the application, it will have created a hardware-linked key that ensures the software cannot be copied to a new computer without re-entering the software key. The easiest way is just to use the installer itself to reinstall the software.

In addition, don't forget about the additional files that may be created when you run the application. For example, files in the Application Support folder. You can use an complete app remover such as AppCleaner to list the files that may be related to the app.

In this case, there was a .plist preference file in ~/Library/Preferences that holds DaisyDisk's user preferences. Copying this file to a different computer in the same place should keep the preferences.

On the other hand, cache files such as those in ~/Caches are not usually necessary to be backed-up/copied.

You need to copy the content of both the applications and application support folders. This can be done by drag and drop or via terminal command prompt. Check video at https://youtu.be/vUlJi5Qzmbs


Make Siri Ding Again on Pressing Home Button So according to this Apple support article, Siri doesn't make that bell sound after holding the Home button to launch it on iPhones with iOS 9 or later. Instead, it vibrates.

  On your iPad or iPod touch, Siri will chime when it's time to ask a question. If you have an iPhone with iOS 9 or later, Siri will vibrate instead. You'll only hear the chime on your iPhone with iOS 9 or later when you're using headphones.
  Siri will also chime when you use "Hey Siri" on a device with iOS 9.

That's really unfortunate because I really liked that ding.

Does anyone know if there's a way to make Siri play the "ding" sound again without headphones or Hey Siri? (Aside from jailbreaking)

The only solution I have found with ios 9 is to go to Settings > Accessibility, and turn Vibration off. Extra caveats can be found in the source link.
Source: apple.com discussion

Just go to Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Home Button; scroll down to Siri and check off Voice Control: