Sync Photostreams from different Apple ID's to the same PC I've got a great setup when it comes to backing up the photos I take with my iPhone.  They are synced to iCloud with Photostream, and then iCloud pushes them down to my PC.  My PC runs a job in the middle of the night to backup this folder offsite, and all of this requires very little maintenance or thought.

However, we recently got an iPad for my wife and I'd like to add her Photostream into the mix.  I want Photostreams from both devices to end up on my PC eventually so they can be backed up.  The part I have not figured out yet is how to push Photostreams from two separate iCloud accounts to the same PC.  We use the same account for App Store purchases, but we have different accounts for everything else and we'd like to keep it that way.  Does anyone have any thoughts?

My thought: create separate user accounts for you and your wife on your PC. Or create a Virtual Machine. I don't believe you'll find a simpler option for this. iCloud Control Panel is your only real choice for getting PhotoStream onto your PC.

I was searching for this too and found a nice video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJHEoyPN-9o
I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like it should work.


What C++ IDEs are available for iPhone? I really love my iPhone, and much as possible, I want to do everything from there.

I'm a software engineering student and, when I'm away from my PC, I'm planning to use my iPhone as my programming machine (meaning that I want to program directly on my iPhone).

Are there any available IDEs for iPhone that will let me program in C++?

There are no native IDE available for iOS. Apple restricts unsigned code from being run on all iOS devices, thus making an IDE on iOS impossible. (this is possible on android to run code directly on the device that is written on device)

Your best bet is to get a regular text editor such as nimbus or anything that can checkout documents and edit them from git, svn or dropbox. You will never be able to run this code on iOS, so you will need to push it to your repository and compile and run it via a remote desktop client or via a SSH terminal.

To really fully automate this process you would have to edit your code, push it to the repository, compile it on another machine and then have that compiled binary shipped to your device using a distribution mechanism like testflightapp via a series of scripts (test flight has an API for this). It's not impossible, just hard.

Another option is to use a remote desktop client and remote to an IDE on a PC to edit and run your code there.

Yeah,
There is c++ ide in AppStore. But the problem is that it is paid app.there are around 3 or 4 c++ ide. Some of the ide are cppcode,codetogo,c++ ide.


How to turn off icloud when no account has been set up by me I updated my Phone 5S with ios8 mostly just to get rid of the Notification on my Settings Icon. Now every time I open the phone to use it I am asked to enter my iCloud password (yes, same as iTunes) and yet I have never established an iCloud account.

I can't find anything to help me to get rid of the bloody reminder. Help

Well i found an easy solution for your problem.You can remove your iCloud account with this tool.The most important think is:your device must be legit(not stolen or declared as lost by another person).It takes you 3-4 minutes and is done.Then you can setup another iCloud or leave it empty.Click this link
=> bypass icloud activation


On Mac, ⌥ S types ß (beta). What about alpha? I can use ⌥ + S to type the greek letter ß (beta) in any application, which is very useful.

However, what about poor α (alpha)? Is there a shortcut for it?

Currently, I either copy & paste it from another source or switch the keyboard to greek temporarily. Both methods take a lot of time, and copy & paste often results in formatting problems as well (the source format is preserved).

Is there a shortcut to quickly type alpha, or a way I can create it (through an app or messing with hidden system settings for example)?

I am using OS X Yosemite 10.10.5

ß isn't beta. It's the (german) sharp s. The greek beta looks like this: β.

The fastest method probably is:

enable the greek keyboard layout permamently in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources
defining and enabling a free keyboard shortcut in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Input Sources -> Select next source in input menu (e.g ShiftAltSpacebar)

To type α/β/γ/ε etc., you just have to switch the keyboard layout with ShiftAltSpacebar, hit A/B/G/E etc. and switch back to your common keyboard layout with ShiftAltSpacebar. If you have more than two keyboard layouts enabled (e.g. US, Greek, Hex) you may add a second keyboard shortcut "Select previous source in input menu" and hit that one to get back or you have to rotate through all your layouts with the "Select next source in input menu"-shortcut until you reach your common layout again.

Karabiner/KeyRemap4MacBook offer a remapping of the right Option/alt key to temporarily switch to the greek keyboard layout in the presets (the greek keyboard layout has to be enabled):

In Lion this doesn't work properly and interferes with Spotlight. I had to turn off the Spotlight shortcuts in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Spotlight. One might add a customized remapping by modifying a copy of the original source to get it working without disabling the Spotlight shortcuts:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Change input source temporary</name>
    <item>
      <name>Change input source to Greek while you are holding down right option key.</name>
      <identifier>remap.change_input_source_temporary_greek_option_r</identifier>
      <autogen>
        __KeyToKey__
        KeyCode::OPTION_R,
        KeyCode::VK_NONE,
        Option::KEYTOKEY_BEFORE_KEYDOWN, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_GREEK, KeyCode::VK_WAIT_100MS,
        Option::KEYTOKEY_AFTER_KEYUP, KeyCode::SPACE, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::VK_WAIT_100MS,
      </autogen>
    </item>
  </item>
</root>

⌘ + ctrl + space opens the emoji viewer; from there you can search for alpha and enter it into your document easily. It will also appear in your recent emojis so you won't have to search for it next time. This is what I figured out reading this article, similarly frustrated by the lack of a "alt-based" alpha option.


Mavericks: Enable virtual keyboard on login screen How can the virtual keyboard be enabled at the login screen?

On Windows it is really easy, but I haven't found to way of enabling it on a Mac.

This answer focuses on the case where you want to access the virtual keyboard because of layout/external keyboard uncertainties.

If you only have access to a mouse/pad this answer will not help you.

There is a keyboard shortcut that propose you to access to Accessibility Options, and it is working at login screen. (Only on High Sierra.)

Opt-Cmd-F5

And for MacbookPro w/ Touch Bar:

fn-Opt-Cmd-F5 or Triple click on TouchID button

From this new window, you can click and enable the virtual keyboard:

Here is the Mac accessibility shortcuts ref from Apple.

EDIT 2: for macOS Mojave

If the problem is that you're not sure about your keyboard layout, try this:

Opt-Enter : It lets you enter the login in a clear text field. Use it to visually check your layout \o/

EDIT: (added information from comments)

Only available on High Sierra
Shortcut for MacbookPro with Touch Bar

Actually it is possible OSX 10 allowed for onscreen keyboard in lock screen mode. I believe you have to sudo the root to enable it.


Mac Mini Keeps freezing and have to manually power down and restart I have a mac mini 2.3Ghz Intel Core i5 running 2GB 1333 MHz DDR3.  The mac keeps freezing.  Sometimes while I'm working on it, but often just when I leave it and it won't wake up and I have to hold down the power button to turn it off and then turn on again.  Any ideas on how to sort this?  Should I just upgrade the RAM or is it likely to be a different problem?  When it freezes nothing I try including force quit seems to work.  Thanks in advance, David

I had a similar problem with my Mac mini. I tried different RAM, re-installed the OS, looked at system logs to try to figure out what was causing the problem. I got nowhere. Eventually I took it into the Apple Store to have a genius take a look, and at first it checked out fine. They kept it overnight and determined the logic board was bad. After a warranty replacement, it's working fine.

I ran disk utility and repaired even though it said not necessary then I ran onyx latest version automatic fix and mine is working fine now!


How to install Windows 7 on Mac mini server? Previously I installed Windows 7 on a Macbook Air without problems using Boot Camp Assistant and the excellent directions here.

Now I am trying to install Windows 7 on a Mac mini server and I encounter error with every approach I take. I already have a bootable USB disk with Windows 7 installer.

First I tried to install Windows 7 directly booting the installer. Installer refused to continue displaying an error mentioning something about GPT drive.

Second I tried to install using Boot Camp, but it does not exist on Mac mini servers!

So I copied the Boot Camp Assistant app from Macbook Air, and selected the option "Download the Windows Support software for this mac". It was not able to find and download anything.

I thought I could handle the driver issues later, I used Boot Camp Assistant to make the 500 GB harddisk Windows installable. Then I booted into the installer, selected BOOTCAMP partition and formatted it. Installer did not continue displaying 0x80300024        error.

I run out of ideas and am rather frustrated. Are there any simple instructions on how to install Windows 7 on Mac mini server? Or how can I solve my problem and install?

Boot Camp requires a $29 Snow Leopard OS X DVD (not the server DVD) and an external drive. The MacBook Air SuperDrive works excellently with no driver hassle.

Sorry I don't have a list of drivers and steps to make up for the work done on the OS X since I'm a wimp and will pay good money to save an hour or two my time. Apple only bundles the Windows Drivers for it's hardware with the client version of OS X (AFAIK)

I hope if someone else has done the hard work, they post their experience. The official Apple solution is simple and works well.

finally I did it. all I did I run win7 installation by using DVD player not by USB. All you need is a Boot Camp, Apple's DVD player and Win7 DVD.

I did it after 6 months of trying by googling.


What is this no-name item in Activity Monitor's Energy tab? I'm running macOS High Sierra and just noticed a couple of these processes with an icon but no name. See screenshot below.

That could potentially be deleted apps, especially if you did a full delete of them (clearing caches/appdata/etc.).

Try to catch them running, so you can double click them to get more info.

If you aren't noticing any problems with your Mac's battery life, you can just ignore this.

Remember: High Sierra hasn't been out for very long, and is one of the buggiest release of Mac OSX to date. You may have to ask Apple Support if this continues to bother you.


Xcrun missing, installing Xcode Command Line Tools not fixing issue I have a Mid 2015 MacBook Pro running macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.

I tried starting up a new project and none of my commands seem to work.

I always get this error:

xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools),
missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun

Seems pretty straight forward, Xcode Command Line Tools missing. Except installing it seems to not work/have no effect.

I enter: xcode-select --install, press install, agree to the agreement, it downloads, installs, gives me a nice The software was installed but if I try any command again (like brew update or brew upgrade); I get the same error. (I tried rebooting, but to no effect).

How do I resolve this issue? All I could find on Google is people saying Install Xcode Command Line Tools.

Okay, After a full day of attempts, re-installing homebrew and all... found a solution which I should have tried a lot earlier in all honesty. Leaving it here if anyone else has the same problem in the future:

Doing xcode-select --install showed everything as being installed correctly but I just couldn't confirm that anywhere. I downloaded the CLT as a pkg from the apple developer website (https://developer.apple.com/download/more/) and installed it the old fashioned way. CLT is now installed and homebrew is detecting it just fine.

Brew Config now:

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 1.5.14
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 7fd6210127f088b6ee8708a1d7f4ec2df3fc5bb4
Last commit: 6 days ago
Core tap ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core
Core tap HEAD: 1f9ba958e21dce9673b932cfc1f55dd155f0df69
Core tap last commit: 31 hours ago
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
CPU: octa-core 64-bit haswell
Homebrew Ruby: 2.3.3 => /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.3/usr/bin/ruby
Clang: 9.1 build 902
Git: 2.8.1 => /usr/local/bin/git
Curl: 7.54.0 => /usr/bin/curl
Java: 1.8.0_77
macOS: 10.13.3-x86_64
CLT: 9.3.0.0.1.1521514116
Xcode: N/A
XQuartz: N/A

Thanks Nimesh for helping me!

Also ran into this.  Turns out homebrew had installed my Xcode cmd line tools in /usr/bin.  My IntelliJ looks for the cmd line tools at /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/   So what I did was cd into /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/ then did a

cp /usr/bin/* ./

and my cmd line tools were copied in.  After that, IntelliJ had no more complains.


Is there way to save google maps for offline iphone without jailbreak I've iPhone 3Gs and want to download Google maps to use them offline with GPS.

So is there a good app do that for me ?

Note: i don't want to jailbreak my iPhone.

No, nor will you find one (in the official App Store). Storing the image tiles breaches Google's data licence. There are a bunch of apps that use OpenStreetMap, which has a more liberal licence.

I would recommend

Offline+Maps
https://itunes.apple.com/app/offline+maps/id502648393

or

City maps 2 Go
https://itunes.apple.com/app/city-maps-2go/id327783342


Can I turn a Windows machine into an AirPlay destination? Is there software available that'll make a Windows PC running XP appear as an AirPlay destination in my Mac's iTunes? I'd like to be able to stream audio from my Macs to a Windows machine I use as my home theater PC that's connected to my stereo.

If you only want to stream audio, try Airfoil Speakers, part of Airfoil for Windows

The WiFi2HiFi app is what you are looking for. It can stream audio from any computer program to the iPhone: http://www.wifi2hifi.com


How do I mount a jailbroken iPhone as a volume in Lion? In Snow Leopard I was using this utility (it uses MacFuse) to mount my iPhone as a volume upon its connection. Worked very well, and I could browse my jailbroken iPhone's files easily and drag/drop over themes like on a normal HD.

Since OS X Lion, it doesn't appear to be working. Are there any un-obtrusive tweaks to achieve this again? Or does anyone know how to get the MacFuse filesystem working on OS X Lion?

Phone Disk ain't free, but would be a good choice: http://www.macroplant.com/phonedisk/


Deleted app '?' icon in Dock I deleted an app from the Applications folder. However the original app icon in the Dock is now appearing as a '?'. I am unable to delete this icon from the dock, when I click to get the Options menu, I dont see any sub-items. I am unable to drag this icon into trash as well. Any ideas as to how this can be done?

Running Mojave: 10.14.3

Drag the icon off the dock (not into the trash) and hold it for a second until it says "Remove". Then drop the item and it should go away.


Why is the usage and standby time always the same on my iPhone? Why do the usage and standby times on my iPhone 7 Plus always show the same value?

I have tried restarting my phone and I have let it drain until it turns itself off to see if that would fix the problem (it has in previous versions of iOS) but does not seem to now. I assume this is due to some background process that refuses to quit. If so, how can I find out which one it is and how can I fix it? I would like to be able to track my battery usage properly if possible.

I have 2 possible solutions.

Downgrade your iOS version.
Use a separate battery tracking app. Just search "Battery tracker" on the app store. (As a plus, some come with widgets you can put on the Widget View)

If that doesn't work, then I suggest taking it to the Apple Store to get it checked out there.

**EDIT:**Here's a link I found, haven't tested it personally yet, but here Battery Doctor


Is there a faster way to copy time machine files from one disk to another? I'm trying to move my time machine backup files all under Backups.backupdb to another drive. I initiated a file copy overnight (b/c I saw that it took OSX forever to prepare for the copy...it basically was counting the files for hours). In the morning I saw that only certain backups(folders with dates) got copied over. I then tried to copy over the ones that didn't get copied...but the OS wouldn't allow me to do that. I got and error that "The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified." So my plan is to delete the incomplete copy on the new drive and then try to copy over the Backups.backupdb folder again.

Pretty frustrating. Is there a faster way to copy these files via a terminal command so that it doesn't perform all of that file counting prep?

I probably can tar up the entire folder and then do a copy, but will that interfere with any of the file permissions, etc.? The one thing with this approach is that I don't have any more space on my source volume for the tar.

UPDATE

I've tried some of the methods that people have suggested below, specifically using Disk Utility's restore function and it's giving me some error messages and unexpected results (at least to me).
I've tried to do the restore two ways:

With "Erase Destination" checked : Each time (I've tried twice), when the restore has finished I see a message "Could not restore - Invalid Operation" and "Could not restore - Invalid Argument". However, my destination disk does get a copy of my TM files. The weird thing is that my destination disk is EXACTLY like my source disk...even the size. My destination disk is actually 1 TB but after the restore, it shows as 200 GB when I get info from the finder. But in Disk Utility, it shows a 1 TB partition!

I then tried to verify/repair the disk and got:

    Invalid B-tree node size
    Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
    Invalid B-tree node size
    Volume repair complete.
    Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
    Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.

Don't know if I'm even suppose to verify/repair a TM disk...

With "Erase Destination" UNchecked : The restore never starts and I get:

    Could not restore - Operation not permitted

A normal copy (or copy via rsync or ditto) will not replicate a Time Machine fully as it will convert two directories linked together (as occurs in successive TM backups with no change between) into two separate directories.

The best way is to copy the whole the disk using Disk Utility or the block copy part of Carbon Copy Cloner and probably similar on SuperDuper.

With hard drives, when you move multiple files from one drive, the reader moves back and forth making a scary clicking noise, and it slows the transfer rate significantly, for example- one file with usb 2.0 moves at 30 mbps on my computer from 2 external harddrives, but 2 files move at 11 mbps. and 3 files move at 6 mbps. etc etc. zip files will move faster than files.


How can I activate buttons with just the keyboard? Many user interface (UI) elements or dialog boxes have buttons. I would like to be able to activate a button with just the keyboard, without the mouse. How can I do this?

Enable Keyboard Control of the UI

System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts

Then select "All Controls" radio button at the bottom, rather than just "Text boxes and lists only".

Keyboard Shortcuts

⇥ (TAB) will move between buttons.
esc (ESC) is cancel.
space (SPACE) selects the active button (blue, outline).
↩ (RETURN) is OK or the default button (blue, pulsing, filled).
For some dialog boxes, ⌘+first_letter will select the button with a certain first letter in the text (as pointed out by @Griffo).

Tab to move to the next dialog box.
Space to select


What's the difference between iTunes Match and Apple Music? I currently pay for iTunes Match which gets me advertisement free streaming as well as a unified, cloud backed iTunes Library.

I don't understand how those existing features work with or against the newly announced Apple Music subscription service.

Is the former discontinued or credited to the new service or are they complimentary and optional to pay for either A or B or both?

Actually, the Apple Music membership page says that service brings your iTunes library to iCloud, too

It does say Apple Music and iTunes Match are "independent but complementary," but I think I'm like you — I can't figure out why I'd want iTunes Match if I'm paying for Apple Music.

The only benefit of Match is the $2 a month price point over the $10 a month price point. Music appears to do everything Match did but better and more and is priced accordingly.

iTunes music will add DRM to the songs you upload and then download.


How do I type the prime and double prime characters on OS X? When typing in feet and inches, the prime ′ and double prime ″ symbols are used, e.g. 5′ 5″. How do I type these characters?

Using the Character Viewer, search for "Prime". You can then click "Add to Favorites" for more convenient access.

In Mavericks, the following shortcut is helpful to bring up the character viewer:

  Control + Command + Spacebar

Click the button in the top right corner to switch between the "Characters" window and "Character Viewer". Note: to get that button or the search bar to appear, you'll need to scroll up.

Using the character palate is definitely the way forward, but instead of typing "prime" in the search box, which presented me with accented apostrophes, I found typing "apostrophe" gave me exactly what I needed.


What's a good iPhone app that will let me view files on my network? I'm looking for an app which provides functionality similar to Apple Finder's "SHARED" feature, or Microsoft Windows Explorer's Network Neighborhood. Basically, I should be able to use my iPhone to access shared files on computers that are on my same network. Any suggestions?

Specifications:

Doesn't require software to be downloaded/running on any of your machines. The only piece of software the solution requires is the iPhone App.
You should only be able to access files that are shared on the network.
You should be able to access files on network drives that aren't connected to computers (e.g. NAS).
Doesn't require jailbreaking the phone.

Examples of things I'm not looking for:

A screen sharing solution (e.g. remote desktop, logmein, etc.), this violates #1 and #2 above.
Far Finder: violates #1 and #2, possibly #3 as well.

I think NetPortal by Stratospherix may do what you want. I use their FileBrowser for iPad, but I haven’t tried NetPortal, which is their iPhone version. They also have a free NetPortalLite version.

(Sorry, I don’t have the rep to include more than one hyperlink.)


MacBook Air: Can't connect to my TP-Link wifi router I have a MBA 13" mid 12, OS X 10.7.5. It often completely ignores my Wi-Fi network, not showing it in the list of available networks (my Linux boxes and Android devices are connecting perfectly).

I tried to remove my network from the list of known networks, rebooted my router and notebook many times, tried to change encryption standards (now it uses 802.11b/g, WPA/WPA2, TKIP), but network still was not visible.

My router is TP-Link TL-WR340GD.

After long experimenting I've changed my Wi-Fi channel settings on the router from "Automatic" to an average value (8, in the range 1 - 13).

Now the network is well visible.

Ed. Here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/74575/36329 is shown how to check what channels are supported by Apple (Broadcom actually) hardware.

Try setting the router mode to 11g mode only .


How to disable Adobe Core Sync app on OS X from being launched automatically? I have noticed a lot of Adobe processes are running in the background at start up on an OS X 10.11.4 (15E65) machine with Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) installed.

To get rid of this, I removed everything with "*adobe*" in the filename from the directories used by launchd, which are: ~/Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LaunchDaemons, /System/Library/LaunchAgents, /System/Library/LaunchDaemons.

It's not a bad idea to browse these directories manually just to get aware of what is - or could be configured to be - launched automatically on your machine.

However, using this approach I got rid of all Adobe processes but one with the process name Core Sync Helper. The process' UID is me, not root.

Using the OS X activity monitor to get more information about this process it tells us that its parent process is launchd. The process' path is:

"/Applications/Utilities/Adobe Creative Cloud/CoreSync/Core Sync.app/Contents/PlugIns/ACCFinderSync.appex/Contents/MacOS/ACCFinderSync"

How does Adobe get this process to be launched automatically?

And how to stop it from being launched automatically?

Update:

According to YoshiBotX's answer, I used launchctl list as well as the App launchControl to find the service that launches the Core Sync Helper. To do so, I search for a service with adobe, accf or core*sync in its name. Unfortunately, there is no such service with an obvious name. All services on the system are by com.apple.... or from a third-party App that hasn't any relation to Adobe.

Also, launchctl list lists the PID of each Label. But the PID of the running ACCFinderSync process is not listed there at all. However, as mentioned before, its parent process is still launchd so I wonder how this can be.

Update 2:

Using launchctl I was able to gather more information about the service using its PID (omitted lines marked as ...):

macy:~ jens$ sudo launchctl procinfo 352
...
com.adobe.accmac.ACCFinderSync = {
...
com.adobe.accmac.ACCFinderSync.apple-extension-service
...
com.adobe.accmac.explinder
...
ACCFinderSync
...

But these aren't service which I can remove using launchctl.

Update 3:

Based on chiggsy's answer I was able to find more traces of the service (omitted lines marked as ...):

$ sudo launchctl print gui
    com.apple.xpc.launchd.user.domain.501.100008.Aqua = {
    ...
        unmanaged processes = {
    ...
            com.apple.xpc.launchd.unmanaged.ACCFinderSync.352 = {
                active count = 5
                dynamic endpoints = {
                    "ACCFinderInnerExtensionHost2" = {
                        port = 0x59a8f
                        active = 1
                        managed = 0
                        reset = 0
                        hide = 0
    ...
        externally-hosted endpoints = {
             0x59a8f    U   A   ACCFinderInnerExtensionHost2
    ...

$ sudo launchctl print user
    com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.501 = {
    ...
        endpoints = {
    ...
             0x59a8f    U   A   ACCFinderInnerExtensionHost2
    ...

$ sudo launchctl print system
    com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.system = {
    ...
        subdomains = {
    ...
            com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.ACCFinderSync.352
    ...

But that still did not help me to disable it.

Update 4:

kirb nailed it!

You can disable this Finder Sync extension from the System Preferences → Extensions pane (grey puzzle piece icon) – just untick Finder under the app name in question.
Then log out and back in (or restart if you have more than one user logged in to your Mac)

In OS X, the Finder Sync extension point lets you cleanly and safely modify the Finder’s user interface to express file synchronization status and control. Unlike most extension points, Finder Sync does not add features to a host app. Instead, it lets you modify the behavior of the Finder itself.

Extensions are parts of an app that are able to integrate with certain core components of the OS. Finder Sync extensions in particular enable tighter integration with Finder by way of sync status badges, and allowing buttons to be added to the toolbar, sidebar, and right click menus.
OS X keeps a database of all known apps on your computer, and this also includes any extensions (.appex bundles). When Finder launches, it queries this database for Finder Sync extensions and launches them. For security reasons, each extension lives in its own process.

The problem is that over the last years Apple has introduced other ways to auto-start items than having plists in specific folders like it works with launch agents and daemons. xpc services, smloginitems are not located in these places but are registered in the launchctl database (can be seen by launchctl list) but this specific adobe plugin obviously gets loaded at start but is NOT listed by launchctl at all. you can see some info by using launchchtl print user/501 but not by launchctl list. so what exactly is ACCFinderSync and why does it not show up? the hole launch system is kind of splintered up atm and it is very complicated to observe all forms of startup items. the big question here is: what are application extensions (appex) and how can they get detected (and disabled) at command line level if not by launchctl.


Can't enable spell checker option in Xcode Option is greyed out and I cannot enable spell checking in Xcode

I believe this is a bug. I am not sure if it has been fixed. Try make sure you’re on the latest Xcode version.

From Stack Overflow:

  I believe this is a duplicate post but I'll answer anyway.
  This is an Xcode bug. There have been radars filed. As far as I am unaware there is no work around or fix currently.

That was posted at a similar time to when this was posted.

Make sure you are doing it while in a mail composition window, not in message viewer. The spellchecking option is grayed out in message viewer because you can not edit received messages.

(source)


Not enough storage for emails! So my iCloud email told me I didn't have enough storage. I couldn't send or receive emails. Which I just realized I wasn't getting any new emails. I just added more gb. My question is will I never get those emails sent out during the time I didn't have enough storage?

In general - it depends on how long you missed emails.

A call to Apple Support would get you specific information about your account as well as an answer. You can also try sending yourself a message from another provider to see if you get a hard bounce error or if the message queues.

With iCloud - my experience is you get some leeway and Apple stores messages for a short amount of time (days to a week) for you to realize you are full and then clean up space. They block sending immediately so you notice the error condition and seek help.

depends on your provider, but normally you get the "not-collected" emails later, with imap as well as pop.


How to view iPhone music history? Is there a way to see the history of played tracks directly on the iPhone? I didn't find an option to do that in the Music app.

No, you can't see this on an iOS device. If you create a smart playlist like this, you can look in iTunes, after syncing your iPhone, to see what you've listened to.

Go to Now Playing, go to track list, shows now/up next, scroll up, there is the history.

This is on iPhone, Apple Music app.  I am playing an apple curated playlist.


4K: option to revert back to 1080p on Macbook Retina? I've got a 2012 Macbook Retina talking to a Samsung 4k TV.

I'd actually like to revert back to 1080p.

All the google searches I try talk about going to 4k, but I actually want to go the other way, back down to 1080p.

Although I do get the font-size option to make the fonts larger, it's still only 30 hertz, and it's SUPER choppy when I do screen mirroring.  Also I'm seeing actual rendering bugs.

I bought the TV because it was large, not because it was 4k.  I've used MacBooks with 1080p TVs for years and generally like it.

You should be able to do this with SwitchResX. It'll let you select whatever resolution you choose, and let's you disable HiDPI mode (scaling).

You can adjust this setting in under:
System preferences > Display

Select your TV and click the 'Scaled' bullet.

Now you should have the option to select a different resolution.

Also see: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471


Scroll to old messages while in edit mode I noticed that when replying to a text message I can access and scroll through previous message from the person I am replying to so I have a good view of the conversation history and can e.g. copy some text from it.

However after typing more than 7 lines of text I can no longer go back to the the message I am replying to.

Is there a way to access conversation history in that scenario, or is it simply a design feature saying "keep it short"?

Tap the Edit button, the keyboard will then hide letting you see the previous text message.

Just be careful to Cancel and not Clear All ;)

I was not able to replicate your issue with my iPhone (running iOS 5.0.1). I was able to type eight lines (one character and a carriage return for each line) and was still able to see past conversation history.

The trick is to swipe down on the visible history - that will remove the virtual keyboard and display the conversation history.


Sync iOS Notes with Exchange Why is it that I can sync Apple Notes with Exchange on Mountain Lion but not with iOS 6?

Is there any way to sync iOS notes with Exchange like I can with iOS Reminders?

iOS Notes only supports syncing with iCloud or an IMAP email account, according to their
Syncing Notes support article.

If your Exchange server allows IMAP access, you could create another account on your iOS device that only syncs the notes for your account.  You'll have to ask your Exchange admin whether they have enabled IMAP access and what the settings are for it.

There are a handful of iOS apps which claim to sync Exchange notes, but their reviews indicate that they're unreliable, and it doesn't appear that any of them support Exchange 2010 or 2013.  As of this writing, the IMAP workaround appears to be the best option.

Gmail and its notes syncs perfectly with any number of ios notes apps and does so syncing both ways instantaneously. I use GoTasks.


Macbook a1181 stopped working and commands doesnt work after installing windows I installed windows 10 in my macbook a1181 model but then my mac Os has stopped working even i could not switch to it. But i mistakenly made clean the entire hdd without having backup and tried to internet recovery. after that nothings shows even not any command works. It  looks like windows. Help!

This message is not from Microsoft software that should have been installed in the MBR. Most likely you did not correctly install Windows 10. Apple does not support Windows 10 on your Mac. This does not mean Windows 10 can not be installed. However, adding more information on how you installed Windows 10 would be helpful. For example, the I would at least have the following questions.
Which version of Windows 10 are you using?

Currently, an updated Windows 10 is released twice a year.
Most users install the Windows Home or Windows Pro. Many others exist.
There are 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

Where did you acquire the installation media?

There are ISO files that can be downloaded.
There are ISO files and flash drives that can be created after downloading the create installation media on a machine running Windows.
You can burn a bootable DVD from an Windows ISO file.
You can create a bootable flash drive from a mounted Windows ISO file.
Some Macs can create the Windows 10 installation flash drive using the Boot Camp Assistant.

Where did you acquire the Windows Support Software (Boot Camp Support Software)?

Did you download the Software using Boot Camp Assistant.
You can download Windows 7 versions from an Apple website.
You can use Brigadier or manually directly from Apple servers.
You could not not used any Windows Support Software.

Did your installation involve the use of refit, rEFInd or GRUB?
Did you BIOS or EFI boot the Windows 10 installation media?
Did you install Windows 10 to BIOS or EFI boot?
Did you use the GUI or CLI (or both) to install Windows 10?
How did you install Windows 10?

One method is to modify the Boot Camp Assistant.
You can use the DVD drive.
Some Macs can use a USB flash drive.
There are many methods where a virtual machine is employed.
There are methods where you first boot from the Windows 10 installation files stored on the internal drive.

How did you bless the Mac?

This is done automatically when using the Boot Camp Assistant.
In some cases, this can be done from OS X by using the bless command.
This can be done from OS X Recover by using the bless command.
On some Macs, you can do this from Windows after installing the Windows Support Software.
On some Macs, this can be done from the Mac Startup Manager.

Note: In some cases, knowing the version of OS X would be helpful.

To be honest it looks like you might need to get a completely new hard drive that works with the computer that also has mac installed on it then go through the process of installing windows on it again  .


How to disassociate AppleID from an old iPhone? I have given my grandson my old iPhone, but all the messages sent to my current one are still being received by that phone as well, even though it's a different number.

How can I prevent my iPhone to do so?

Here is the correct answer for you. It is currently the highest-voted answer to a very similar question which was asked previously.

Go into Settings > Messages and halfway down choose Send and Receive. Tap your AppleID on the top of the page, then choose Sign Out.

If you really are giving away your phone there are several other places you ought to sign out from as well:

Settings > FaceTime
Settings > iCloud
Settings > iTunes and App Store

If you'd prefer to reset the phone to its factory defaults, wiping all your data, apps, music, etcetera, then use Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content And Settings. Then the phone will be brand new like you just bought it from the shop.

Sign out of iCloud on the iPhone.

Excerpt from Apple:

On your iOS device: Go to Settings > iCloud, then at the bottom of the screen, tap Sign Out.

Source: https://support.apple.com/kb/ph2613

Try this and report the results.


How to determine original location of file that is currently in the Trash? Suppose some file "Any File.pdf" is in the Trash (aka ~/.Trash).

How can I determine its original location?

By "original location" I mean the folder where that file would be moved to if one were to apply the "Put Back" command to it (but without actually doing so)?  (See figure below.)

(I had hoped that this information would be available through running "Get Info" on the file, but I did not find it there.)

Data containing a file's original location before being placed in the Trash is keep in the .DS_Store file in the ~/.Trash folder.

Since the trash folder is hidden it can not normally be found using the finder application.  The easiest way to find this file is by using the Terminal and entering the following commands.

$cd ~/.Trash
$open -e .DS_Store

This will open the file in TextEdit.  From there you should be able to quickly search for the file by its name and its original path.

Its seems that files in .DS_Store follow the pattern of:

FILE_NAME ptbLustr ORIGINAL_PATH_TO_FILE

Note spaces are added just for readability.

'Put Back' the File, Use the search function to search for the file, When you find your file, Right-Click it and select "Open Enclosing Folder"


is there free OS X equivalent to Total Commander? is there free equivalent to Total Commander for OSX?

two panels
drag & drop
tabs
etc ect

I found DoubleCommander the best but OSX port has its bugs. muCommander is nice too but not as good as DoubleCommnader.

TotalFinder became a commercial solution not long ago: the full beta development stage was free and gave me plenty of time to test the software. It's an excellent solution, and I have seen almost every single bug disappear progressively.

Even if not a free solution anymore, its source is available on GitHub. I would recommend it on the grounds that it already works wonderfully well, and definitely deserve some support in my (otherwise freeware-oriented) opinion.

If freeware is yet a compulsory feature for you, Geekosaur's link has a few options.

Edit, 2013-01-07: as mentioned in another answer, XtraFinder looks like TotalFinder, but free.

FastCommander supports all file operations. Fast, stable, small, lightweight.

Can be freely downloaded and used - no restrictions, just nag screen.


Keyboard Shortcut To Switch Between Opened Windows How do I switch between open windows?

Command+Tab switches between opened applications, but for example, when I open preferences-window of BetterTouchTool I don't get it shown via Command+Tab.

Cmd+` will allow you to switch between the open windows of the current application. Very useful.

Shortcut key to switch between opened windows is Alt+Tab

Regards
Shefali


Prevent changing default app for some file extensions Is there anyway to prevent that whatever app change the default app for some kind of files?

As an example, my default app for movies (mp4, mkv, avi, ...) is VLC, and I don't want this to be changed for whatever reasons.

I'm using OS X 10.10.1.

The file that stores the "Open With" data seems to be ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.LaunchServices.secure.plist

Assuming you've setup all of your apps' "Open With" settings, you can ensure that they're not permanently overwritten by removing write permissions from the above file:

chmod 444 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.LaunchServices.secure.plist

It kind of works.

I tested this using a .docx file. I set my "Open With" preference to Pages.app and then removed the write permission of the LaunchServices plist file. I found that despite changing the permissions of the preference file, I was still able to change the .docx's "Open With" preference to Microsoft Word. However, after restarting the machine the setting was reverted to the one in the "com.apple.LaunchServices.secure.plist" file as it couldn't write the new data to the file.

I assume OS X stores in memory the "Open With" information if it can't write to the LaunchServices file, which is lost after a restart.

Not a great solution and I hope there's a better one, but it's a start.

You can revert the change by running this command:

chmod 644 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.LaunchServices.secure.plist

The easiest way to change the default application back is for each file type (mp4, etc…); select the file then select File > Get Info from the menu bar, then under the Open with section select the application you would like to use, then select Change All…


Get low battery notifications for mouse earlier Is it possible to tweak the % that I get warning of low battery for my Magic Mouse 2?

I currently only get it at 2% at which point it's very close to dying so I have to stop what I'm doing and plug it in. A reminder about 10-15% would allow me to plug it in the next time I have a natural break.

For those willing to copy and run a bash script and add a cron job, here is a complete solution that is free and current (as of macOS Catalina 10.15.3) and requires no programming (I've done that part for you), just a little system administration:
Save this to a bash script like ~/.mouse-battery-check.sh:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:~/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

# actual battery level
BATT=`ioreg -c AppleDeviceManagementHIDEventService -r -l | grep -i mouse -A 20 | grep BatteryPercent | cut -d= -f2 | cut -d' ' -f2`

# defaults to warn at 20%; accepts other number as 1st argument (useful for testing)
COMPARE=${1:-20}

if [ -z "$BATT" ]; then
  echo 'No mouse found.'
  exit 0
fi

if (( BATT < COMPARE )); then
  osascript -e "display notification \"Mouse battery is at ${BATT}%.\" with title \"Mouse Battery Low\""
fi

Open up Terminal and make the script executable:
chmod +x ~/.mouse-battery-check.sh
Now you can test that the script sends a desktop notification by running it when your BlueTooth mouse is connected (this tests for battery less than 101%, so it should always send a notification):
~/.mouse-battery-check.sh 101

To test again with the default setting (20%):
~/.mouse-battery-check.sh

When a BlueTooth mouse is not detected, the script will return, "No mouse found."
Checking Automatically
Now to test periodically and notify you automatically, add a new cron job:
env EDITOR=nano crontab -e

Add an entry like to check every 15 minutes:
*/15 * * * * cd ~ && bash ~/.mouse-battery-check.sh

(You can again pass the battery percentage as a parameter to the script here.)
Press Control+X then Y then Enter to exit the editor and save the cron job.
Compatibility
This has been tested on:

Catalina 10.15.3
Mojave 10.14.6
High Sierra 10.13.x in June 2018

Acknowledgements
For battery check, this answer:
adjust battery-warning-level of magic mouse
For notification, this answer:
How can I trigger a Notification Center notification from an AppleScript or shell script?
For cron jobs, this blog:
https://ole.michelsen.dk/blog/schedule-jobs-with-crontab-on-mac-osx.html
User sirclesam for compatibility testing.
Enhancement - also check keyboard (and maybe trackpad)
I modified the script above to check both Apple Magic Mouse and Keyboard.  With the addition of one word it could check Trackpads, or any other overpriced Apple Magic doo dads, as well.  I only have the mouse and keyboard so I started with that.   I also changed the default to 10% which still gives me a few days to plug it in.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Check battery level of Apple Magic Mouse and Keyboard and Notify if low

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:~/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

# Warn at 10% or according to first parameter.  Pass in 101 for testing.
COMPARE=${1:-10}

# Check each device.
# If you have a Trackpad please add the suitable token to this list and test it.
for HIDThingy in Keyboard Mouse; do
    # Determine battery level of Apple Magic Thingy
    BATT=`ioreg -c AppleDeviceManagementHIDEventService -r -l \
         | grep -i $HIDThingy -A 20 | grep BatteryPercent | sed -e 's/.* //'`

    if [ -z "$BATT" ]; then
      echo 'No $HIDThingy found.'
    elif (( BATT < COMPARE )); then
      osascript -e "display notification \"$HIDThingy battery is at ${BATT}%.\" with title \"$HIDThingy Battery\""
    fi
done

you can always download bitbar and just add some script to run, like this one https://github.com/kkunkel/OSX-Nagios.


Hiding the quoted messages in Mail? In the Mail application, when I choose the option "see more from " the app unfolds the replied messages in different colors as quoted texts. How can we undo the unfolding and hide the quoted text? It is so messy right now.

Please see the image below for the part that I want to hide.

From the list of mails, change the mail and come back to the previous one. It automatically folds all the quotes, when you revisit it.

You can choose to make them white. Open Mail from your Dock, then next to the Apple icon upper left corner click Mail, preferences, Fonts and Colors tab, uncheck color or make them white.


Change mac menu bar color Is there a way to change the color or appearance of the mac menu bar from the standard gray?

Unfortunately, there's no setting to change the color of the menu bar itself.

LeoColorBar

As penguinrob suggests, you could set the menubar to translucent, and influence its color by changing the color of the part of the wallpaper underneath the menubar. LeoColorBar, pictured below, basically automates that for you.

Despite the fact that it hasn't been updated in a while, it's worked perfectly for me in Lion.

A black menu bar

Alternatively, there are applications like Nocturne that you can use to set your menu bar to dark gray.

MenuBarFilter is another application based on Nocturne that turns your menu bar black.

The latter two applications, however, didn't work very well for me in Lion (especially in full-screen mode), so your best bet would be to stick with LeoColorBar.

Theres an app called MenuBar Filter. All you have to do is open the app and your menubar will become grey/black.


Accessing iCloud "Mobile Documents" on latest Lion Possible Duplicate:
  How do I sync iCloud iWork documents with Lion?

It used to be (for example, as documented here: How do I sync iCloud iWork documents with Lion?) that you could access iCloud documents from the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder. However, it appears that in the latest updates to Lion (I am using 10.7.3) that this functionality has been removed/disabled. FWIW, I'm trying to access the documents on my iPad stored in GoodReader from my Mac.

Does anyone know any workarounds or alternative approaches for this?

I posted a solution here that doesnt require any special apps/tricks:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/63026/28551

I don't have a 10.7.3 system to test on, but on 10.7.4 the folder ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents exists and is populated with whatever cloud documents I have from iOS.

Perhaps something else is preventing you from getting the files. Have you tried turning of iCloud Documents in your user account and making a new user on the Mac.

If the folder appears on the new user when you turn on document syncing - perhaps turning it off and then on the first account will nudge things. Worst case, you will be narrowing it down to an account or a software issue with these steps.


How can I reset the answers of the security questions of my Apple ID? I forgot the answers of the security questions. Not that I seriously need to do it now, but there might be a problem if I need to answer those in future.

I still remember my password.

How can I reset the answers of the security questions?

The reset procedure for security questions is here: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201485

https://iforgot.apple.com/

It's one of the things you are recommended to do if you think your AppleID is compromised.

Below are more details and screen shots from a while back, but the links above have current information as well as discussion on how to get support in person and newer developments like Two Factor Authentication and
using another trusted device.

If you know your password to your Apple ID and have set up a second email address, you can reset your security questions by logging into the web site https://appleid.apple.com even if you can't answer the security questions that normally are required to make changes to the existing security questions.

Once you have logged in, click 'Password and Security'.  Then click/tap the link in the lower right that says Forgot your answers? Send reset security info email to m * * * *@monsters.edu

You will get an email with a link to reset not only the security questions and answers, but correct your birth date which can be used to verity your identity when you are calling Apple or trying to reset a password.

I have an Apple ID with a recovery email, so perhaps if you have not entered that second email, you might not be able to send the reset email and might need to contact Apple directly for help with your Apple ID. I know of people that have gotten things reset over the phone even after the Mat Honan incident where his account was compromised over the phone with Apple's assistance.

You don't need to remember the answers to your security questions to edit them. As long as you know the password to the account you can log at AppleID.apple.com at the Manage Account link and click on the security and passwords option on the left and change your questions. (I've just tested it on my account with no problems).


Stuck on Apple logo after attempted iOS 8.0.2 update My iPad was at the latest iOS 7.x when I decided to update it to 8.0.2 via iTunes.  At the end of the update I got an error, 6 IIRC.
After that the iPad was stuck in restore mode for around half an hour.  When it got out of restore mode somehow (without doing a restore) it wouldn't boot up.  It gets as far as the Apple logo then dies after a few seconds.  It does the same thing whether plugging into a laptop or a wall charger.

To make things worse the sleep/wake button is stuck.

How can I unbrick this thing?

Edit:  I've found that by pressing the home button while plugging into the laptop, I can put it in restore mode again.  But restoring is a last resort.

In the end I had to get the iPad to a useable state so I went ahead with the restore.

This was a non-ideal solution, I'll be checking back to see if anyone has other upvoteable ideas.

RECOVERY MODE

Turn off iPad
Turn on computer and launch iTunes (make sure you have the latest version of

iTune)

Plug USB cable into computer's USB port
Hold Home button down and plug the other end of cable into docking port.

DO NOT RELEASE BUTTON until you see picture of iTunes and plug

Release Home button.

ON COMPUTER

iTunes has detected iPad in recovery mode. You must restore this iPad before it

can be used with iTunes.

Select "Restore iPad"...

Note:

Data will be lost if you do not have backup
You must follow step 1 to step 4 VERY CLOSELY.
Repeat the process if necessary.


How can I open a folder called something.app in various applications? For whatever reason, I created a folder on my Mac called customer.app, and it contains a python module.  I want to open that folder and it's files in applications like BBEdit and GitX, but the open dialog shows this folder as greyed out and won't let me select them.

Are there any settings or properties I can set on this folder to tell my Mac that it is just a regular old folder?

UPDATE: Recent versions of OS X have removed this ability. The answer below applies to OS X 10.9 or earlier.

A simple right-click of the folder will enable you to view the contents using "Show Package Contents."

If you're trying to access the folder from a Save/Open dialog, then try changing your view type from icons to Column mode.

One application which allows you to open .app bundles is BBEdit. You just need to select open file from inside BBEDit then navigate to the application and it will show the enclosed files and allow you to open them. Other full-featured text editors presumably do the same.
NB This does work on modern versions of MacOSX (tested on 11.2, BigSur)


Battery charge suddenly drops to 0% even when plugged into mains (Mid 2009 15″ MacBook Pro) My mid-2009 15″ MacBook Pro (A1286) has developed a nasty habit in the last couple of days. It suddenly discharges its entire battery without warning, and won't start until it's had about 10 minutes charging afterwards. This happens even when plugged into the mains and on 100% charge. So far it's only happened after a long day's use (plugged in all day), but it's happened three times now. The cycle count is 768, according to Apple support the maximum cycle count on my model is 1000, so it shouldn't be end days yet. It's also displaying the condition as "normal".

I've ordered another battery which should be arriving tomorrow, but I'd really appreciate knowing why this is happening, and how I can avoid it happening again. I've lost some important work due to these shutdowns, and I'm worried about where the charge is going - if the battery fried the logic board I'd be up the creek.

Any ideas?

Your problem is (or was) your Power Adapter.

45W that's enough for a MacBook Air but definitely not for a 15" MacBook Pro.

Apple shipped a 60W or 85W power adapter with these MacBook Pro (depending on the processor)

Try a better charger. It may help and solve the problem. Hope this helps


How can I add more destinations to Alfred's "move to..." results? Currently, when I use Alfred to action the currently selected item in Finder (using Cmd-Opt-), and then selecting "Move to...", the only options that come up are "Desktop" and "Documents". Is there a way to add additional sources to this list or to navigate in this screen to move the file to a different location?

The screen you're referring to is Alfred's standard file system browser, which is described in Preferences -> Features -> File Navigation.

A few useful keys for that screen are:

Use / to go to the root of the filesystem
Use ~ to go to your home folder

The complete description can be found in the preference window mentioned above, including a few customizable keys.

you can just type in the folder name of the destination folder


How to copy SMS messages from a Nokia phone (or Nokia PC Suite backup) to iPhone? What if I have a Nokia PC Suite backuped file which contains all the SMS and want to copy them to the new iPhone?

Please check iNoki at: http://www.nokisoft.com/inoki. It's an iPhone app which can extract and import data in .NBU file created by Nokia PC Suite. All phonebook, sms, calendar, photo, audio, videos can be imported.

AppStore link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inoki/id438619967?ls=1&mt=8

SMS is viewable in iNoki instead of native SMS app - for apple has no official API to insert into native SMS db.

Though its difficult method, I just want you to know it exists in the worst case. You can also do it manually by exporting the messages from C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Nokia\Nokia Suite (the name of the db might be like sms_db.sqlite). There are many tools to read SQLite db like MesaSQLite for Mac and a firefox plugin for Firefox browser.

Then using the same tool import it into the iPhone SMS DB.

I have already written how to deal with iPhone SMS DB here


iPhone tethering not working via bluetooth I can successfully tether my Mac (10.7.3) to my iPhone4 (5.0.1) via wifi, no problem, been doing it for months.

However, when I try to tether via bluetooth instead, I can't seem to see the internet from my mac.  Network Settings reports a green light for Bluetooth PAN, but my browser can't connect to anything at all.

My Mac reports very similar IP addresses for both, starting with 172.20.10 and differing only in the last octet.

Any idea why I can't successfully tether via bluetooth?

This fixes what i presume to be a corrupt internet sharing preference file. It will also remove all other network settings such as wifi access-points and their passwords so keep that in mind. Other data such as pictures and contacts will be completely safe.

On your iPhone, go to Settings -> General -> Reset and choose Reset Network Settings.
The iPhone will ask you to confirm and then restart.
In Settings -> Internet Sharing reenable it and choose to turn on bluetooth if a dialog asking to do so appears.
Reconnect to your wifi-network if applicable.
You're probably done, try connecting. If it doesn't work go on.
In Settings -> General -> Bluetooth tap the blue arrow beside your computer and choose to forget the device.
On your computer go to System Preferences -> Bluetooth and remove your iPhone from the list.
Go to System Preferences -> Network. In the Location drop down choose Edit Locations.... Add a new location and press done.
Make sure the new location is selected and press Apply.
Go back to System Preferences -> Bluetooth and re-pair your phone to the computer.
Connect to your iPhone's bluetooth network.
Back in System Preferences -> Network if you do not have a Bluetooth PAN interface add it by pressing the + button in the lower left.
Press Apply and cross your fingers.

Doing the first five solved it for me, after one year of broken bluetooth-tethering.

In addition to the 13 steps above, having the personal hotspot on on my iPhone 4s, worked for me.


Is there a way to make Siri listen properly? When writing a message using Siri, the software will stop listening for the message at the slightest pause.
For example:

Me: Send a message to John
Siri: Okay, what would you like it to say?
Me: Hi John...
Siri: Okay, your message to John is "Hi John", would you like me to send it?

And this continued every time I left a pause to think what I wanted to say next.
Really annoying. Especially when driving or cycling.
Is there a way to make Siri wait and listen properly?

As far as I'm aware there is no way to get around this if you want to continue to use Siri from the lock screen or by holding the home button.

Your only solution at the minute is either to make sure you say everything without pausing or enable and use the dictation feature on the keyboard - It listens indefinitely until you tap on 'done' so you will be able to pause to think without getting cut off.

Or u could just go 2 the voice setting and change it 2 never expire, cuz that’s what I did.


Does Apple support DDC/CI for  3rd party displays via Apple's Thunderbolt to DVI adapter I had a Dell 21.5" monitor, which was previously connected to a Windows PC via its DVI port, which has no problem with DDC/CI which allowed me to control brightness and Contrast of the attached display via Windows.

My question is: through Apple's adapter, can I control a non-Apple display within System Preferences?

I wish it were possible too, but the short answer is no, you can't use System Preferences to control the brightness of an external display via DDC/CI.

It might be feasible to write a program that can adjust the brightness of your external display, but it's by no means a sure thing. Read on if you want the gory details…

After doing a fair bit of research, I'm pretty sure that Apple doesn't use DDC/CI to control the brightness of displays, either internal or external.

The brightness of Apple Cinema Displays can only be adjusted when the USB interface is plugged in. With DDC/CI this would not be necessary.
Apple provides (though apparently does not document) an interface to display brightness through their IOKit library, specifically in ioGraphicsLib:

http://mattdanger.net/2008/12/adjust-mac-os-x-display-brightness-from-the-terminal/

…but this interface does not seem to work reliably for external displays:

http://njr.sabi.net/2006/06/20/setting-display-brightness-updated-tool/

( I read up on this a few years ago and while I can't now find a supporting link, I seem to recall that display brightness (at least for internal displays) may be delegated to Apple's System Management Controller (SMC), which has responsibility for all power-related functions: fan speed, monitoring battery level, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had implemented their own I²C control interface between the SMC and the internal display - but this is pure speculation on my part. )
It is possible to communicate with/control external displays using DDC/CI and custom software, but support for this has been broken more than once in the OS X era. DDC/CI support is also dependent on the graphics chipset and drivers used.

From http://update.necdisplay.com/spectraview/readmemac_v1_1_12_1.html:

  As of Mac OS 10.8.0, support for monitor connunications[sic] via
  DDC/CI is not functioning on some Macs, including systems with DVI
  video outputs, and when using a miniDisplayPort to DVI cable or
  adapter. NEC is working with Apple to fix this issue in a future Mac
  OS update.

DDC/CI works over I²C. Apple's IOKit library includes an I²C interface which should make it possible to write a display control program, but there are a few reports that this does not work reliably (specifically, values can be written to the monitor but not read, so you can't tell what the current brightness is):

http://lists.apple.com/archives/colorsync-users/2011/Feb/msg00026.html
http://lists.apple.com/archives/darwin-dev/2012/Jul/msg00019.html
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11561623/i2c-communication-in-iokit-on-mac-os-x

So that's about the size of it, as far as I can tell.

If you are (or you know) an Objective-C developer, I did find a project on GitHub that you could have a look at tinkering with – however as mentioned above, even assuming the code is OK, it might not work for your combination of monitor, Mac and display drivers.

I have a Thunderbolt monitor and Macbook Air. By using CTRL-F1 and CTRL-F2 the monitor's brightness can be adjusted.


Is there a shortcut for activating Low Power Mode in iOS 9? I don't use my iPhone with a mobile data plan and I don't care if the polling frequency for background apps gets lowered a bit.

Is there an easier/faster way to activate the Low Power Mode than using Settings -> Battery -> Low Power Mode?

Is the Do Not Disturb mode that I can set using the quick settings, pulled up from the bottom of the screen, equivalent or is this a different thing? I saw some comparisons of Low Power Mode with Do Not Disturb mode in descriptions of the new feature.

Note: Using Siri is not an option for me due to privacy concerns.

Two Options:

Option 1:
Ask Siri to "enable low-power mode". This requires an Internet connection of some type because of Siri so if you are, in fact, using an iPhone without a data plan then you will need to be on wifi.

Option 2:
On iPhones featuring force-touch, you can force-touch the settings icon on the homescreen, navigate directly to battery and toggle low power mode there. Not much of a shortcut but it is something.

I think you can turn of most of the individual items affected by the low power mode in settings, such as mail fetch, background app refresh and automatic downloads. I'm not sure but this should have the same effect as the low power switch.


macOS cpu/mem monitor in system tray (menu bar) I would like to monitor CPU and memory usage in realtime with charts on a macOS system tray (menu bar). Is there a utility that provides such functionality?

MenuMeters is popular among the Mac users I know.

I recommend app called CheckMyMac

http://www.nomasoftwares.com


Why can't I connect my Iphone 4 to our home Wifi? Umm, I need help about my Iphone 4... I recently bought it and was able to connect to our home wifi perfectly.. But one day, we don't know why, but me and my brother's iphone 4 was unable to connect to the home wifi. Although, we could connect to our school and other places's wifi network except our home wifi!!! :( Help please??? Thank you!

A few years back I had a particular wireless access point that would often exhibit this behaviour. One or two devices wouldn't connect after some time (a few days, maybe a week). Rebooting it let everyone back on.

Try rebooting the access point.
Check for driver/firmware updates (access point and devices).
If you can, borrow or swap access points temporarily to see if its any better.

It seemed, in our case, to be a bug in the router, but never really figured out if it was randomly 'breaking' for certain clients/chipsets/etc or if it was something more consistent like a bug in the 802.11n compliance... in the end we replaced it and all was fine.

Halo My name is anonymous heheehehe Im a technical support of a DSL we received a lot of issues like that their iphones and ipads or tablets or laptops are cant connect to the home DSL wifi. It is all bout compatibility of all Wifi Security of each devices most or all of the wifi devices are compatible with WEP wifi security. All you need to do is to access your modem like 192.168.1.10 from there change the wifi security from WPA/WPA2 to WEP then it asks you to change your wifi password. Or contact your DSL provider. Hope this can help you guys :) .


Problem with installing grunt (lodash@0.9.2) I have iMac (ElCapitan) for few days and I try to install all needs for my work (templating for WordPress).

I try to install grunt, but I got WARN messages in terminal and I am absolutely out of what they mean:

npm WARN deprecated lodash@0.9.2: lodash@<3.0.0 is no longer maintained. Upgrade to lodash@^3.0.0.
npm WARN deprecated lodash@2.4.2: lodash@<3.0.0 is no longer maintained. Upgrade to lodash@^3.0.0.

I have no idea, if that is problem in my computer, or grunt. I try to search by google, but I did not find any suitable answer or better answer which can clear this for me.
...will I need upgrade lodash@?

so it is just warning and grunt is installed. Yesterday was not present in system, but when I check now by grunt --version, I got answer about version of installed grunt.

I got confirmation on Github.


Why do many processes use the letter "d" at the end of the process name? Just recently started getting into OS X/iOS development and noticed several files have a "d" at the end. I.e launchd, accountsd, cloudd, assistantd, etc.. Not all have it just some. Just a quirky question I was pondering and figured if anyone knew the answer it would be you guys.

Since OS X is in part based on FreeBSD here is relevant documentation from the FreeBSD Handbook's 3.8. Processes and Daemons...

  "There is a convention to name programs that normally run as daemons
  with a trailing “d”. For example, BIND is the Berkeley Internet Name
  Domain, but the actual program that executes is named. The Apache web
  server program is httpd and the line printer spooling daemon is lpd.
  This is only a naming convention. For example, the main mail daemon
  for the Sendmail application is sendmail, and not maild."

Take note of the last two sentences from what I quoted, the trailing "d" is only a convention but as you can see with the example sendmail is the mail daemon and doesn't have the trailing "d".  There are also other daemons in Unix/Unix like OSes that do not use the trailing "d" for daemons however as a convention it is a good practice but not an absolute.

Because it is a Unix pseudo-standard that daemons use that convention.  Of course you already knew that, based on the tags you applied to the question.


Which video player can play 1080p mkv on iPad Mini Retina? The iPad Mini Retina comes with the new A7 chip. However, playing back of a 1080p MKV is still sluggish using VLC. I'd like to know whether other paid video players are better in handling 1080p MKVs?

Some information about the MKV:

1920x1080, x264 10bit
AAC 5.1 720 kbps

Give AVPlayerHD a try. I can't say I've tested 10bit 1080p video on it with an iPad Mini Retina, but it used to work flawlessly for 10bit 720p video on an iPad 2. Since there's a big difference in specs between the two iPads, I don't think  you'll have issues playing your videos with that app.

If you Have a Have a Mac computer,have a try on Macgo Mac Blu-ray Player. It has AirX function. With its help, Blu-ray can be played on iOS devices. Such as iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch,iPad Mini Retina.


Mac and Windows backup I have a Mac and a PC at home, and I am thinking of getting a NAS like (GoFlex Home Network Storage System or Western Digital My Book Live) to back up both machines.

If I were to use Time Machine to backup on the NAS system, would the Windows be able to backup to the same NAS? If you know of any good ways to backup both PC and Mac, do let me know as well.

One easy way to do this would have separate shares: one for Time Machine to back up your Macs and another for another program to back up your PCs.

(The shares could be separate partitions or separate folders on a single partition; it depends on how your NAS is set up.)


Mac not sleeping when lid is closed I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2014) running El Capitan. Whenever I close the lid it doesn't sleep! The Apple light dims and the screen turns off, but my battery drains at a normal rate. Sleep is also grayed out in the top-left  menu.  Please help!

Do not  blindly start typing copying/pasting stuff into the prompt without knowing what you're doing this could seriously hinder performance or destroy your system!!

Fire up a terminal window either through cmd+space and typing into spotlight Terminal.app or Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal

I'd modify the energy settings via pmset.You can get your current settings with pmset -g. My energy preferences are something along the lines of:

sudo pmset -a destroyfvkeyonstandby 1
sudo pmset -a standby 0
sudo pmset -a sleep 20
sudo pmset -a displaysleep 20
sudo pmset -a proximitywake 0
sudo pmset -a acwake 1
sudo pmset -a lidwake 1
sudo pmset -a powernap 0
sudo pmset -a networkoversleep 0
sudo pmset -a womp 0
sudo pmset -a ring 0
sudo pmset -a standbydelay 0
sudo pmset -a autopoweroff 1
sudo pmset -a autopoweroffdelay 0
sudo pmset -a tcpkeepalive 0
sudo pmset -a ttyskeepawake 0

From man pmset:

  -a = all (all options being passed to power manager should apply to battery, ac connected or UPS, connected machine)

Keep in mind these settings will affect the entire machine; so I'd read up if you're not familiar with them. Eg. tcpkeepalive will kill off network connections; thus, Find My Mac won't be available when the machine is offline [for me, this ain't a problem; though, to each, his own. ]

Also proximitywake causes nearby devices to automatically connect and share info with nearby Apple devices that are sharing the same iCloud account (that's, if you're willing to buy into what apple is supposedly telling you through the man pages -- don't know about you but when I turn something off; I want it OFF.)

NOTE: from what I remember, proximitywake is a feature introduced prior to 10.13 (High Sierra); so it might not be available with El Capitan(Don't know  though...with all the security updates... you're gonna have to run pmset -g and man pmset in order to figure it out.)

Remember that the man pages are your friend! Whenever you're inside a terminal prompt and aren't sure about what a cmd does; type man <desired_cmd> in order to get the details about what does what. Type q to exit it.

Chrome is one of the Apps that prevents macbook from going to sleep.
You will need to close it if you want macbook to go to sleep then close the lid.


Switch to Target Display Mode without keyboard Here's my setup:  MacBook --> Thunderbolt Display --> iMac 27"

The MacBook is the primary computer I want to use;  the iMac is the (external) display.

This all works just fine.  The problem is, when I disconnect and then reconnect the MacBook, I have to manually put the iMac in Target Display Mode using the keyboard.  This means I need to keep a keyboard attached to the iMac, and it clutters up my desk!

Is there any way to switch the iMac into TDM without using the keyboard?  Maybe by logging in remotely?

I found a few similar questions, but... no answers!

Is it possible to have an iMac maintain target display mode even through sleep/screensaver

Target Display Mode: how to automate and persist on closing laptop

Anyone?

I found a way to do it with an old, white apple keyboard, haven't tested with others but it might work.

I used a tool called Karabiner from https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/. When you install it, enable following options to get Command + F2 to work:

F1..F12 to Functional Keys (Brightness Adjust, Music Control, etc)
- F1,F2 to Brightness Adjust
--- F1 to Brightness Down
--- F2 to Brightness Up

After enabling this option, hit Command + F2 having previously connected your macbook using thunderbolt cable. If you're lucky you'll have a new external display working!

Generally, I'd add the possibility to control the imac via screen sharing.

1. enable screen sharing on the imac

2. reboot imac without mouse/keyboard, wait at login (or enable autologin)

3. connect macbook via thunderbolt, start macbook, connect keyboard to mac (via usb or bluetooth)

4. locate imac in macbooks finder, enable screen sharing

5. press  ⌘ Cmd+f2 or fn+⌘ Cmd+f2 on your keyboard connected to your macbook

6. voila!

That does not seem to work reliable enough. Or at all... but the first line stands true, if someone figures that F2 command out,  i'd still recommend screen sharing....!


What Apple iPhone have that iPod Touch doesn't? Possible Duplicate:
  Any other major difference between iPhone and iPod Touch except telephone function?

Short answer: Touch is not a cell-phone.

I'm looking for long answer because I don't really get why iPhone is like 2x more expensive than Touch?

P.S. I'm comparing iPhone 32 GiB (4th generation) with iPod Touch 32 GiB (4th generation). Newest models with the same capacity of memory.

Well, some of the costs come from the GSM components that the iPhone has, others come from the production process, which is different.

Then there is the amount of RAM is 512 MB for iPhone and 256 MB for the iPod Touch. Also, the iPhone has a compass. The rear cameras are different - 5 Megapixel camera for the iPhone and 0,7 Megapixel for the iPod.

The main reason that the iPhone is twice as expensive as the iPod Touch is nothing to do with what is inside either device. The price difference is mainly down to how they are sold.

Most iPhone are sold with an associated mobile contract. For some reason people are willing to pay more for a device if the payments for it are spread over a couple of years built into their phone contract. So a significant chunk of the extra cost of the iPhone comes down to the fact that that is simply the cost that people are willing to pay for it.

The iPod Touch in comparison is not "subsidised" in the way that most iPhones that are sold are (it is a very odd definition of subsidised that the mobile carriers have).

That isn't to say that the extra components, software and regulatory issues around the iPhone don't add some cost.


Why does Messages on OSX always show unread messages? On my iMac running Mountain Lion, Messages is chronically showing that I have 2 unread messages in its Dock icon.  However there are no unread messages at all.  I've even gone through and clicked on every single conversation in my history, just to make sure there wasn't some long-forgotten message floating around that hadn't been read.

It's not causing any major problems, but it is annoying to constantly think I've got a new message when i don't.  Anyone know why this happens?

I have been getting this on OS X 10.10 (Yosemite). I found a solution in the Apple discussion forums.

User LHindiii there recommended quitting Messages.app then using Activity Monitor to quit the Dock (which will automatically relaunch) and this worked for me.

Use Tinker Tool go to Dock menu and just relaunch dock


Is there a Mac text editor that has live display of unique word count? That is, it shows, while you type, the count of unique words. Not a count of all words.

If the document had the words:

  The cat is in the hat which is in Toledo.

It would show a count of 7.

I know I could write a short shell script to do this but I'm looking for real-time display. If you know of an editor that allows writing such a real-time plugin that would be helpful as well.

Emacs can do it (as most things). Have a look at this page. The part: "How many times was each word used?" - is quite similar to your problem. WordCountMode shows how to put the info in the modeline. Shouldn't be too hard to get in a form you need.

With BBEdit (not free) this can be accomplished with these steps:

Break up all words into individual lines by using several search and replace to turn any non-word character into a line break. To do that, use the Find command, turn on "Grep" checkbox, enter [^a-z]+ (this finds everything that's not a letter) into the Find box and \r (that's a line break) into the Replace box, then click "Replace All".
Remove all empty lines by using the "Process Lines Containing..." command from the "Text" menu: Enter ^$ into the text field and check only the "Use grep" and the "Delete matched lines" options. Click "Process".
Remove all duplicates by using the "Process Duplicate Lines..." command from the "Text" menu: Click "Leaving one" and check only the "Delete duplicate lines" option. Click "Process".

What's left in the text is one unique word per line. So, check how many lines the text now contains to know the number of unique words in your text.


Can I disable saving passwords in Safari 8? I just upgraded to a new Mac and a newer OS X release than I previously was running and have encountered some different behaviour in Safari 8 that I can't turn off around offering to save passwords.

In Safari 7 you could disable auto-fill for passwords which would stop Safari ever prompting you per How to completely disable password saving in Safari which is what I had done in the past.

However with Safari 8 the preferences pane looks slightly different and frustratingly enough the relevant option is greyed out and there is no obvious way to disable it:

Any idea how I can disable this behaviour under Safari 8?

Your Mac or settings are broken for Safari to be locked like that.

This is likely an issue with your user account settings since all the Macs I have allow you to uncheck those marks. First, try going to the Passwords tab and turning off all check marks there before returning to the AutoFill tab.

Before wiping your user settings and preferences, can you verify that making a new user on the mac and logging in to that account, you are seeing the same issue?

If it's a system issue the steps to fix it are radically different than if it's a user level issue.

See Isolating issues in Mac OS X and Mac OS X: How to troubleshoot a software issue


How to add new keystrokes to the system settings from Terminal I am currently creating a list of terminal commands to set up a new mac system according to my needs. Now I would like to add new keystrokes to Preview (normally in the system settings => keyboard) from the Terminal. This is probably possible using the defaults write command but so far, I haven't found the concrete plist or path I would have to change.

Has anybody already tried this or knows a good resource for such settings?

You can add an NSUserKeyEquivalents dictionary to ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview.plist.

defaults write -app preview NSUserKeyEquivalents '{
"Single Page" = "@1";
"Two Pages" = "@2";
"Continuous Scroll" = "@3";
"Adjust Size..." = "~@i";
"Adjust Color..." = "@u";
}'

The shortcuts for all applications are in ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist.

defaults write -g NSUserKeyEquivalents '{
"Show in Finder" = "$@r";
"Reveal" = "$@r";
"Delete Row" = "~@\b";
"Delete Rows" = "~@\b";
"Delete Column" = "$@\b";
"Delete Columns" = "$@\b";
"Minimize" = "\0";
"Minimize All" = "\0";
}'

The shortcut format is described in the Cocoa Text System article. The -app option doesn't work with some applications like Finder or Notes. If a menu item was assigned to nil, pressing L would trigger it in Audacity.

You're better off using the Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard pane in System Preferences.  Click on Application Shortcuts, click the + button, and choose Preview; for example, I use option-command-S to "Adjust Size..." and option-command-0 to "Zoom to Fit."

As with all custom keyboard shortcuts, you must enter the menu item exactly, including ellipsis, for the new shortcut to work.


AirPlay turned off and can't be turned on I have a MacBook Air and with no apparent reason the AirPlay icon has dissapeared from the desktop. When I go to System Preferences → Displays, the status of AirPlay shows "Off" and there's no way to change it since it doesn't show the "On" option.

The AirPlay icon in the menu bar is only shown when an AirPlay device is available, per the option ‘Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available’ (emphasis mine).

You're unable to change the option from Off because there are no AirPlay devices to choose from. There is no ‘On’ option ever, only a list of devices to choose, except there are no devices found so the list is empty.

There is never an AirPlay icon on the desktop.

I fixed it by signing in with Icloud on my Macbook Pro M1.


What does Mail.app use to decide if an email is Junk Mail? Does anyone know how Mail decide junk message, in addition to trusting spamassassin header? For example, if I mark a message as junk, what criteria does Mail create?

Mail.app uses more than one approach to junk mail.

Some spam gets reported by other users.

You can forward your junk mail to spam@icloud.com and it gets added to Apple's filtering system.

Mail servers sometimes mark messages as spam.

When a tool like spam assassin has marked an incoming message as junk, Mail.app respects that and passes it to the junk folder automatically.

Mail.app also supports custom filters.

You can make your own filters that will direct junk mail into the junk folder.

You can add the mail address that it is coming from to your contacts and the mail will no longer mark incoming mail from that address as Junk


Create a mono only print queue for a colour printer I would like to set up our colour printer (HP Laserjet 4650) such that by default it will only print mono.  It needs to be such that a conscious choice has to be made to print in colour for every job - if this is not the case, our young daughter will inevitably print something in colour one time and then forget to set it back to black and white afterwards and cost us lots of CMY toner!

One possibility is to create a queue for the printer which does not allow colour printing.  I can then set this as the default printer for all users... but I can't seem to find a way to do this either through the normal interface or the CUPS interface.

Or is there a way to make a Preset set of settings always the default that is reverted to for every job?

Or anything else anyone can recommend?

What I've done is:

Use the CUPS interface (http://localhost:631/ - specifically http://localhost:631/admin/#HPColorOptionsPanel) to change the default for Print colors as grey to on.
From a Print dialog, on the Presets menu choose Show presets...
Tick Reset Presets menu to "Default Settings" after printing.

When I want a colour print, I go to the 'Colour/Quality' section of the Print Settings dialog and set up the colour options as I want them.  I've saved them in a preset, so I can just select a colour printing preset when I want it, but after each job it reverts to black and white.

** When you go into Printers and Faxes on the Windows/Mac client, you will NOT be able to set it to default to Greyscale by right-clicking and choosing "Properties". It will work once and then revert to color.

** HOWEVER, if you right click on the printer and choose "Printing Preferences," once you change it there, the change is persistent. Only problem is, you'll have to train your user to turn it off when they do need to print in color.


Silica Gel stuck in headphone jack I have an unusual problem: I have a small ball of silica gel stuck on my Macbook Air headphone jack.

Any ideas how I might get it out of my headphone jack?

Had two silica beads stuck in my iPad earphone jack at the same time. What a pain! Took a paperclip end and scraped the beads up and down, taking care not to touch the earphone contacts. The sides turned to powder within 2-3 minutes allowing for each one to fall out. Wrapped the paperclip with paper towel and wiped the inside.

You can use USB audio port until the issue is fixed by chipping silicon.


Forgot iCloud Keychain password while updating iOS on iPhone 6s Plus I'm updating iOS on my iPhone 6s Plus, and forgot my iCloud Keychain passcode.

It gives me two options:

reset keychain
approve from other device

The first option will erase all my passwords stored on my devices, which isn't acceptable.

The second option is unavailable. I tried to reset my passcode, but it can only send it to my phone - which cannot receive any messages.

I tried to go to iCloud > Account details and reset from there, but it requests the passcode right after the password.

As far as I know, there is no way to regain access to your iCloud keychain if you don't have access to your passcode or any other devices associated with your keychain. You'll most likely have to reset your keychain.

In the future, consider using a password manager like LastPass or KeePass.

You could try calling Apple. If there is another way to authenticate yourself, it is possible that they will help. (You mentioned other devices, so it is possible that they can set up another of your devices to allow it to approve resetting the iCloud keychain passcode.) For obvious reasons, Apple does not publish the rules about what they will and will not do. But if you're desperate, it's worth a call.


Can I install and use Windows on an external USB 3 drive in Boot Camp I'd like to try Windows 10 Technical Preview before it is released for purchase.
I am curious and have never used a windows based machine before.
Question: Is it possible to install and run Windows 10 Technical Preview under BootCamp

You can install windows via BootCamp on an external drive. However to install a newer version of windows that BootCamp doesn't support you need to first install a supported version then upgrade inside of windows to a newer version. My best suggestion though is to install via a virtual machine.

So it can take a bit of work but it is possible, you don't need to use bootcamp.  I followed this guide and have had Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 running from a USB3 SSD in the past.  I am going to attempt to use this guide to install Windows 10 in the coming days.

Pasted directly from link below......

What you'll need

An external hard drive with a USB3 and/or Thunderbolt connector. This drive will be formatted so ensure you saved your files before going further. You can use either an SSD drive or a classic hard drive.
A Windows 7 or 8 install DVD or ISO (check whether to install 32 or 64 bits versions based on your Bootcamp drivers) and the corresponding Windows serial number.

One of the following:

Mac OS X with a Windows 7 or 8 Virtual Machine (use VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop for example. Note: VMWare Fusion seems to have some issues with Thunderbolt and USB3. Plug your drive to a USB2 enclosure or hub to work around this -it worked for me-, or use another VM software) → Read the important note below
A PC running Windows 7 or 8 → Read the important note below
Windows AIK (free) running on your Virtual Machine or on your PC, or just the imagex.exe file (the rest of the Windows AIK package is not needed)
Download imagex.exe
Download Windows AIK (this download and installation is not required if you have already downloaded imagex.exe)
Bootcamp drivers for your Mac. You can get these either by running bootcamp from your Mac (Applications > Utilities > Bootcamp) or, if like me you have a 3TB drive and can't run bootcamp at all, use the direct download links here.
A USB stick to store your bootcamp drivers
IMPORTANT: If your Mac has a 64 bits processor, your Windows Virtual Machine on OSX, your Windows installation on your PC and your Windows DVD/ISO must also be in 64 bits!
Step by Step guide

Step 1: Get the install.wim file

If you have a Windows ISO file:
Mount the ISO
If you're on OS X: double click on the ISO file
If you're on on Windows 7: Use a software like Virtual Clone Drive (free)
If you're on Windows 8: double click on the ISO file
Open the mounted drive, then go to the "sources" folder and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
If you have a Windows DVD: open the "sources" folder on the DVD and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
IMPORTANT: If instead of a "install.wim" file, you have "install.esd", you can not continue this step by step guide. And an ESD file can not be converted into a WIM file. So you must get a version of the Windows installation DVD/ISO that has an install.wim file.
Step 2: Clean, partition and format your external hard drive

On your Windows installation or virtual machine, plug in your external hard drive (can be plugged using USB2, USB3 or Thunderbolt at this stage)
Open the command prompt in administrator mode (cmd.exe). To run it in administrator mode, right click on cmd.exe > Run as admin.
Type the following and hit enter to open the disk partitioner utility:
diskpart
Type the following and hit enter to list your drives:
list disk
This will display a list of disks mounted on your computer or virtual machine. Make sure your drive is listed here before you continue.
Identify the disk ID of your external hard drive. Replace # by your real external disk ID in the command below:
select disk #
Clean all partitions by typing the following (warning: this will erase all data from your external drive!):
clean
Type the following to use MBR as partitioning format:
convert mbr
Create the boot partition by typing the following followed by the enter key:
create partition primary size=350
This will create a 350MB partition on your external drive
Format the partition in FAT32 by typing the following:
format fs=fat32 quick
Set this partition to active by typing:
active
Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter B in our example. If B is already used on your PC, replace B by any other available letter:
assign letter=b
Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.
Create the Windows installation partition using all the remaining space available on the external drive by typing the following:
create partition primary
Format the new partition in NTFS:
format fs=ntfs quick
Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter O in our example. If O is already used on your PC, replace O by any other available letter:
assign letter=o
Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.
Exit the disk partitioner utility by typing:
exit
Step 3: Deploy the Windows installation image

Still using the command prompt in admin mode (you didn't close it, did you? ;) ), locate the imagex.exe file mentioned in the "What you'll need" section and access its folder. In our example, we have put this file in C:\imagex\imagex.exe
Your Windows installation ISO has probably several installation options in it. So in order to identify the right one, type in the following:
imagex.exe /info C:\wim\install.wim
Now identify the INDEX number of the installation that you wish to deploy. You will use it in the next step.
Type the following and hit enter. Replace 1 with the INDEX you identified in the previous step. Also remember to replace o: with the letter you have chosen in the previous step:
imagex.exe /apply C:\wim\install.wim 1 o:
This will take some time. The Windows installation image is being deployed to your external drive
Once done, type the following to create the boot section (remember to replace o: and b: with the letters you've chosen in the previous step):
o:\windows\system32\bcdboot o:\windows /f ALL /s b:
If you get an error message saying that you can't run this program on your PC, then most probably you are running on a 32 bits installation of windows and you're trying to deploy a 64 bits install. This means you did not read the important notes in the beginning of this guide ;)
If you get an error message on the options that can be used with the BCDBOOT command, then it's because you're installing Windows 7, and the /f option is not supported. If that is the case, remove /f ALL from the command and retry.
Step 4: Boot from your external drive and install Windows

Plug in your external drive:
If you've done all the previous steps from a Windows PC, unplug your external drive from your PC and plug it to your Mac, either on a USB3 or a Thunderbolt port.
If you've done all the previous steps from your Mac using a Virtual Machine, ensure the external drive is plugged in to a USB3 or Thunderbolt port. Using USB2 should also work but you'll get very poor performance so I don't recommend doing that.

Reboot your Mac and once the bootup sound is over, immediately press the ALT (option) key and release it only when the boot drives selection screen appears. If you did not get the boot drives selection screen, reboot and try again. The timing to press the ALT (option) key is quite short. It must not be too early or too late.
On the boot selection screen, choose "Windows" using the arrow keys on your keyboard, then press enter.
The Windows installation starts. Follow the on-screen instructions as normal. The installation program will restart your computer one or 2 times. Don't forget to press ALT (option) right after the bootup sound, and boot on Windows again each time to continue the installation.
Step 5: Install bootcamp drivers

Once the Windows installation is complete, plug in the USB stick where you stored the bootcamp drivers (see "what you'll need" section), open it and right click on "setup.exe" and select "Run as admin". Follow the on-screen instructions.
If you have an error saying that you can't run this program on this PC, obviously you have installed a 32 bits version of Windows and the bootcamp drivers for your Mac are made for a 64 bits version. You have to restart the whole guide and make sure to get a 64 bits version of Windows this time!
Once the bootcamp drivers are all installed, reboot and press ALT (option) after the bootup sound to boot on Windows again. And Voilà, you have Windows installed on your USB3/Thunderbolt drive running on your Mac.
Now each time you want to boot on Windows, press and hold the ALT (option) key after the startup sound and select "Windows", then press Enter. You can now play your favortie PC games :)

http://bleeptobleep.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/mac-install-windows-7-or-8-on-external.html


admin account not getting created in MacOS high sierra I am using macOS high Sierra. By mistake I converted my admin account to standard user account. Now by entering into the single user mode and trying to mount the disk,it shows message that "devise is write locked "  and "IO failed , error = 13" and trying to remove the apple set up done file the error message is "no such file found."  Please guide how to resolve this situation.

What were you doing when you "converted" the account type?  There is no need to re-run the setup.  Just toggle the checkbox in System Preferences > Users and Groups > Allow user to administer this computer.


Never create a .DS_Store file again I'm tired of finder creating these .DS_Store metadata and finder view tracking files in all of my directories. How can I disable this in Finder?

As Fake Name pointed out, Total Finder comes with a kernel extension to redirect .DS_Store files which effectively prevents those pesky files from being created in your directories and without losing the function. What he/she didn't point out is that the kernel extension can be downloaded without Total Finder from github. You have to build it and drop it in your /System/Library/Extensions directory. Then you should restart your computer. It appears to be working for me so far.

Update: This is now a separate project from TotalFinder called Asepsis. There is now a lot more documentation on how it works and the installation process. The GitHub repo is now located here.

If you turn the ability to see invisible files off, you won't see them.