Need to force an iOS update Hi my iPhone 3gs is currently operating on 6.1.6.
I'm trying to load an app & when I push install a window comes up telling me I need to update to iOS 7 or later.
My software updates say I'm up to date.... Is there a way to force an update???

The iPhone 3GS is only upgradeable up to iOS 6.1.6, released February 21, 2014. [Wikipedia]

There are ways if you look on the net. Below is a quick copy and paste of one trusted site I use. Most anyone can do this. Just do a search for the files you need to download that are mentioned below. It is straightforward and minimal risk (especially on older phones you are on the fence about upgrading anyways).

Step 1. Backup your iPhone 3GS and remember that you are installing the tool at your own risk. Think twice before you continue.

Step 2. Download Whited00r7 for Windows or Mac and your iPhone / iPod touch model. You can get the program here.

Step 3. You will have a zipped archive with the program and all the tools necessary for the installation process. Unzip the folder.

Step 4. Launch Redsn0w program. You need to select “Extra” option and choose “Pwned DFU” button. The software will show you the guide so, please, follow it and wait till your smartphone is set into Pwned DFU mode [you will see the black screen at this point].

Step 5. It’s time to install Whited00r7 program with iTunes. To do this, you should press / hold SHIFT on Windows PC and point to Whited00r .ipsw file located on your computer.

Step 6. Finish the installation procedure and reboot the iPhone 3GS.


How can I disable websites from being able to open App Store on iOS? As the title says, how can I disable websites from being able to open App Store on iOS?

I was reading a news website and clicked a link that opened a new tab (an advertisement) which then went on to opening my App Store and going to an Apps download page.

How can I disable websites from being able to open App Store on iOS?

I use 1Blocker and Adamant content filters to block most JavaScript and trackers. That and careful decisions about what sites to visit have stopped this entirely from my iOS experience.

The ways that an advertiser can pay for placement means that some sites, you will never be able to get around this annoyance, but when it does happen, you can make note of that site abusing your time and at some point, you can stop visiting those sites where you are forced away from their content that you came to read in the first place.

This post will be useful. You manage this using accessibility settings of your iOS. I tried with iOS 11.

https://facepage2.blogspot.in/2017/12/how-to-restrict-safari-from-launching.html?m=1


Is there a program that allows you to create keyboard shortcuts that consist of regular keys? I'm looking for a method that will allow me to turn custom, nonstandard key combinations into a currently-unused intermediary key (like F16 or something). The intermediary key would then be able to be recognized in other applications (such as FastScripts), so that I can finally assign this intermediary keyboard shortcut to whatever action within that application that I desire.

By "nonstandard key combinations," I mean combinations that do not incorporate any modifier key (that is, ⌘ command,  ⌥ option, ⌃ control, fn, or ⇧ shift).

Examples of nonstandard key combinations, pressed simultaneously:

1 + 0
A + D
space bar + V
W + 5
tab + Q

I have installed Karabiner, but I don't see a way to accomplish this in Karabiner.

Are there any programs that can do what I am looking for?

OS X El Capitan, version 10.11.6.

This can be done in Karabiner, but is counter-intuitive and turns common keyboard usage upside down (check the first sentences of Monomeeth's answer).

An example for [M+N] to F13 is already provided in the presets of Karabiner:

Mapping 1+0 to F16 would require to add the following snippet to private.xml:

<item>
  <name>Simultaneous Key Presses [0+1] to F16</name>
  <identifier>remap.simultaneouskeypresses_012f16</identifier>
  <autogen>__SimultaneousKeyPresses__ KeyCode::KEY_0, KeyCode::KEY_1, KeyCode::F16</autogen>
</item>

By defining an additional vk_lazy key (i.e. 0) it should also be possible to first press 0 and then 1 and depending on the first key up either send an F16 or write 01, which is a more comfortable behavior typing "shortcuts" on a keyboard.


OK to use higher RAM than Apple “allows” it? I am looking to upgrade RAM on a MacBook mid-2010, Model A1342. According to apple, I can only upgrade up to 4GB of RAM (currently only has 2GB). I don't want to blow up the computer if I add 8GB of RAM.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

There are three limitations on the amount of RAM that you can put into most Macs:

1. The number of slots in the machine.

2. The size of memory available on one RAM module.

3. Limits to the memory addressing of the memory controller or OS.

Your Mac has 2 slots, so it can only add 2 of whatever size memory cards are available. Very often, when Apple releases a Mac model, only certain sizes are available, with larger memory modules being manufactured at a later time. Apple usually doesn't make a statement on compatibility of newer modules at a later date.

Some Macs are limited to only address a certain amount of memory, either by hardware limitations, or by the OS. Adding more may not give any benefit (with only the machine's maximum being addressed), and in some cases adding more can cause poor performance. (For instance, the 2009 MacBook could address up to 6Gb of RAM.)

Your Mac can cope with up to 16 GB of RAM, if running Lion or higher.
EveryMac spec

A 32bit system cannot manage more than 4 GB of RAM because of its addressing limitations. (2 exp. 32 =  4. 294.967.296 different addresses that can be used. That's 4 GB) Adding more than 4 GB of RAM is thus not a good idea as your system may possibly not work anymore. I hope this answers your question.


Is there a way to reveal an item in the Finder from Launchpad? Sometimes I will see something that does not really belong in Launchpad—a readme, for instance—and I'd like to see it to move it. Sure, I can close Launchpad, open the Applications folder, and hunt for it there (perhaps in subfolders), but it seems to me that there ought to be an easier way. Is there? I can't seem to find one. Right-clicking, sadly, seems to do nothing.

I'm not trying to delete items that are in Launchpad from my drive; I just want to see them in the Finder, so that I can move them around or perform other operations on them..

The answer to the question is No, there's no way to reveal an item in the Finder from Launchpad.
However, there is a relatively easy way to remove items from the Launchpad, which is what I really wanted to do, and it does not require moving the item out of the Applications folder: Launchpad Manager. It's an inexpensive utility that helps you manage your Launchpad, and, crucially, remove any items you'd like from it.

There is an easier way.

While in Launchpad press and hold the Optionkey, then select the "x" on the icon to remove it.  The icons will "shake" like they do on the iPhone.

There is a caveat; you can't delete apps that are either required by macOS or didn't come from the App Store.  In that case, you must go through the Applications folder.

See Use Launchpad on your Mac on Apple Support for more information.


Find and replace literal control characters Is it possible to replace control characters like newline and tab in Pages version 5.6.1?

I'm aware of How to use find and replace to replace a character with new line and the possibility of inserting literal characters in TextEdit by using option-return or option-tab but both those don't apply to current Pages version.

In my case I want to replace multiple newlines with a single one, I tried exporting the document to ODF and doing the replace with LibreOffice but the structure of the document is such that LibreOffice cannot correctly save it back.
Once the file with the replaced newlines is saved I cannot open it again, neither with Pages nor with LibreOffice itself.

Pages no longer supports finding and replacing "special" characters since version 5.1.

Just one of the features that disappeared not to come back again.

Actually, you can just type "\n" for this.


How do I prevent my MacBook from sleeping when downloading apps from the App Store When I try to download large apps from the App Store whether on battery or AC power the displays turns off after time set and downloading also stops.

The Energy Saver preferences are set to defaults.

What should I do to continue download even when display is off?

I am using OS X 10.9.4

If you don't want to install any software or change settings, you can use the Terminal utility caffeinate. Open Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/), type in caffeinate, and press return ↩.

If you want to set a timeout so it will go to sleep after some amount of time, use this:

caffeinate -t 3600

That will make it stay awake for an hour. (3600 is the number of seconds you want it to stay awake.)

To stop or cancel the caffeinate command, press ^ ControlC.

just leave a video running like a 8 hour sleep music video


Data written to USB to Serial adaptor differs from data received – regression in OS X 10.11.2 After I update to OS X 10.11.2, El-Capitan, from 10.11, my Aten USB to Serial UC 232A no longer works properly.

When I send hexadecimal data, for example client send : 02 01 10 30 30 30 03 CB, the server will receive 02 01 10 FF 82 8A 03 CB 00. Server always receive different data even when I send same data twice. Somebody can help me? Thanks.

Note :

I use MacBook Pro - Mid 2014
I use CoolTerm to send data and the Adaptor is Aten USB to Serial UC 232A.

This explanation on how to install USB serial drivers works for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zuRukW7o0A


Water fried iPhone 4 I dropped my phone into a pool a while ago, and didn't realize until about 30 minutes after. When I try to hook it up to the computer, it doesn't recognize the device, the iPhone wont turn on, it is ruined. But I was wondering if there's a way to get files off of it even with the computer not recognizing the device. Any suggestions?

You have no way to restore data, all gone


How to always show the menu bar on fullscreen mode? Do not tell me to use this shortcut CTRL + COMMAND + F to exit or enter in the fullscreen mode. I would like to always see the menu bar in the top of the page when I am in fullscreen mode, is it possible?

This Mac default style is completely annoying.

I don't think it can be done.

By default, the menu bar will float in if you hover the mouse at the top.

Alternatively, why not just use the window maximised, which will give a very similar look to what you want. [Green dot, top left of any window - though some apps will toggle full screen horizontally & vertically, others only vertically, you'd have to drag the corner for those]

Update for Yosemite, the green button behaviour is now reversed from Mavericks & before…

Green dot will set to fullscreen, without the menu bar.
 Alt ⌥  /Green dot will maximise, leaving the menu bar visible.

I observed this phenomenon and let me try to explain the rationale behind this.
Think of full-screen mode as a full-screen mode of a video on a youtube.
you wouldn't want any menu bar appearing on that full-screen while watching any video.
Similar is the logic behind the disappearance of the menu bar while in full mode of any application.
the only other option is to maximize the application to view the menu bar.
Additionally, mac allows the reappearance when hovered on the top instead of exiting the full-screen mode. This is an added feature when observed from this logic.
I hope, I have answered the logic behind the disappearance of the menu bar with my observation.


I cannot rearrange pages of a PDF in Preview Trying to learn how to use my camera, I downloaded this PDF manual. Once I opened it in Preview, I noticed that the pages were not in the right order, so I tried moving them in the left-side drawer to reorder them. But Preview wouldn't let me.
I usually have no issue reordering pages of a PDF by dragging them around. But for some reason, I cannot rearrange this document (I can't rotate the pages either).
I checked, and the file isn't locked and I have read and write permissions.
Why can't I reorder the pages of this PDF file?

The PDF is, somehow, locked against editing.
Here is the workaround I found, to achieve the desired result without having to use a third-party app. The idea is to duplicate the PDF from Preview in a way that will remove the restrictions.
Open the PDF and chose File then Print. In the dialog, chose size and orientation, then click on PDF on the bottom left, then Print to PDF.
Open the new file. It can now be modified at will, like any unlocked PDF.

You cannot edit a PDF in preview, you can only annotate and  yes, there is  a distinction between editing. and annotation.
To edit a PDF you will need  a tool like Adobe Acrobat (not the reader) or  any of the many 3rd party utilities designed to  do  so; the good ones  are  generally paid
Additionally, you can  edit PDFs in  Word as  well as  LibreOffice, it's not  as  seamless as  Acrobat but if  you own/subscribe to Office you don't have to purchase something else. LibreOffice is  free, of  course ( I prefer Word). Pages may  have this  ability, but I'm  not  a user of  it  so  I cannot confirm.


What I can delete from /private/var/vm? What is this folder? It's huge and I can use the extra room. I've read sleepimage isn't necessary—is this true? Should I just deal with it? Is the "private" folder emptied automatically, or would I have to do it manually? If it isn't useful (or needed), is there any way to prevent it from reappearing in the future?

/var/vm/sleepimage is used to store the contents of the RAM during hibernation, and the hybrid hibernation and sleep mode that Mac laptops use by default. If you have 8 GiB of RAM, /var/vm/sleepimage takes about 8 GiB of disk space. I don't know why it isn't deleted after waking up from sleep though. It might be to ensure that there is enough free disk space for it or so that it won't be stored on non-contiguous blocks if disk space is low.
You can delete /var/vm/sleepimage safely, but it will be recreated when you put the Mac to sleep. If you run sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0; sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage, the Mac will use a normal sleep mode (like desktop Macs by default) and it won't recreate /var/vm/sleepimage.
From man pmset:

hibernatemode = 0 (binary 0000) by default on supported desktops. The system will not back memory up to persistent storage. The system must wake from the contents of memory; the system will lose context on power loss. This is, historically, plain old sleep.
hibernatemode = 3 (binary 0011) by default on supported portables. The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.
hibernatemode = 25 (binary 0001 1001) is only settable via pmset. The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery life, you should use this setting.

0 (traditional sleep mode) enables fast wake up and sleep, saves disk space, and reduces writing to the drive.
3 (hybrid hibernation and safe sleep mode) enables fast wake up and sleep and enables restoring state after a power loss.
25 (hibernation) saves energy and enables restoring state after a power loss.

I used hibernatemode 0 with my MacBook Air. Even if the MacBook Air went to sleep when the battery was nearly empty, the battery didn't usually drain out completely during sleep. /var/vm/sleepimage took about 4 GiB of disk space, and writing it hundreds or thousands of times might have reduced the lifespan of the SSD.

sudo pmset -a hibernatefile /dev/null/sleepimage


iMessage and FaceTime from complete stranger I have had the same problem as the previous complainant. I received an iMessage from a @yahoo.com address saying "hi". I then asked who this was and the reason for the message and also how he obtained my number and email. He claimed that he has me stored in his directory as "Abba". I'm certainly no Abba!

I asked him to remove me from his contacts, to which he agreed. Today the idiot messages me again saying hi. I mentioned that I would have him reported, he then called on FaceTime and hung up???? Also sent me a pic of himself!! How do I block him from contacting me, this is rather annoying?

First, the best advice for dealing with a hungry troll: don't feed him.

Ignore this guy, and he will quickly get bored and move on.

If your device runs iOS 7, you can block FaceTime and messages from known addresses that disturb you.

However, if unknown individuals are bothering you with frequent iMessage text messages, you can adjust your Notification settings to ensure that you are not interrupted with alerts when messages from unknown contacts are received (the messages will still be waiting for you in the Messages app, but you will not receive pop-up or banner notifications about them).

To disable notifications for iMessages from unknown contacts, go to the Settings app, then Notifications, then Messages, then scroll down to the "Show iMessage Alerts From" and select My Contacts Only.

Then, ensure that the person who is harassing you via iMessages is NOT in your Contacts.  You should no longer receive alerts about his messages (but they will still be received in the Messages app).

Note that this also means that you will not receive notifications about messages received from ANY unknown contacts - you will only receive notifications about messages received from phone numbers or email addresses that are stored in your Contacts.  So, be sure to check your Messages app regularly to see if you've received any messages from people not in your Contacts list that you WANT to hear from.

Call your phone company or go on their site and have that number/email blocked. I know verizon has a blocking option right on their website. You will have to log on to your account to do so.


Enabling BitLocker without TPM on MacBook Pro with Bootcamp I have been wanting to enable BitLocker without a compatible TPM (my MacBook Pro) on a Bootcamp partition that has read / write access to the EFI. Is there a way to do this?

I wanted to document this because the information that I've found is spread out and highly complicated. I've found a set of steps that are much simpler to enable BitLocker on a Bootcamp install of Windows. I've combined the information from these two sources for this guide:

How do I mount the EFI partition on Windows 8.1 so that it is readable and writeable?
Bitlocker in Windows 8.1 inside Bootcamp on the MacBook Pro (mid 2009)

The first step is to boot into your Windows partition, then log in, and open up an administrative command prompt.

Mount the UEFI partition to a drive letter:
    mountvol b: /s

Copy the Microsoft EFI binaries to the UEFI partition:
    bcdboot c:\windows /s b: /f UEFI

Unmount the UEFI partition:
    mountvol b: /d

Configure BitLocker to work without a TPM:

Start => run => gpedit.msc
Open the Local Computer Policy node
Navigate to Computer Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows
Components \ Bit Locker Drive Encryption \ Operating System Drives
Double click on Require additional authentication at startup
Enable the feature and check the box next to Allow BitLocker without
a compatible TPM, click Apply and Ok, and close out of Local Group
Policy Editor.

Reboot your machine back to Windows.

You can now enable BitLocker on the device using just a passphrase.

Successful solution, overcoming error
I followed these steps for my MacBook Pro 15inch 2016 (touchbar) and was then able to over come the error I got as I've also described in the third step:

How-To Geek: How to Use BitLocker Without a Trusted Platform Module
(TPM)

How-To Geek: How to Set Up BitLocker Encryption on Windows

Which drive is the “data drive” referred to in the Bitlocker error
“The data drive specified” where would it be set to “automatically
unlock”? (solution to overcome error: "the data drive specified is not set to automatically unlock on the current computer and cannot be unlocked automatically" and "C: was not encrypted").


How to revert to Lion from Mountain Lion? I'm running a Mid-2011 Macbook Air, my first Mac.  When I bought it, it had Lion pre-installed.  Yesterday I picked up an external hard drive, and made my first Time Machine backup.  In the next few days I plan on going to Mountain Lion, but am trying to be cautious.

If I have issues with Mountain Lion, and want to revert to Lion, what steps can I take now to ensure that I don't lose anything when going back to Lion?  Will a Time Machine backup + the Lion Recovery disk maintain all my documents/data/settings?  So, I'd have a Time Machine backup of my post-update Mountain Lion system, will Lion/Time Machine be able to take all the documents and data that were created under Mountain Lion and restore them to my system after reverting to Lion?

Essentially, I'd like to know what other steps I can take now, while I have Lion, that will make this hypothetical reversion a smoother experience.  Is my plan of Time Machine + Lion Recovery disk fundamentally flawed in some fashion?

edit:  As discussed in the comments, I've made a TM backup, and made a Lion Recovery disk.  I went forward with Mountain Lion's install.  I see in the Mac App Store, that I have ML available to redownload, but there's no option there for Lion (which I was sort of expecting, but now have confirmation).  Looks like the only way to reinstall Lion at this point is to use that recovery disk.

The Time Machine backup should do a pretty good job keeping all of your documents and most of your settings and should be backwards-compatible*, but I recommend making a complete, bootable backup of your previous system so that you're guaranteed to be able to restore your machine to exactly as it was before updating.

I'm a fan of Carbon Copy Cloner (free trial) for making the backup. Back up to a clean disk or partition using CCC and tell it to copy everything. It will also help you
clone your Lion Recovery HD onto the backup disk.

Once the backup is done be sure to try booting from it to make sure everything worked.

*Should be, but I haven't personally tested.

Machines with 10.8 installed from factory do not take kindly to downgrade attempts. Even with a fresh SSD and multiple USB boot drives of older versions of OS X I was unable to boot. Seems the firmware will only accept 10.8 in the newest Macs.


iPhone Not Charging When Plugged In? My device is simply not charging while connected to my Windows 8 system. I've heard of my friends having this issue too. There is no connection issue, my computer recognizes it is plugged in, but I don't think it knows what it is and it clearly doesn't allow for charging.

What could be causing this?

Try steps at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1476

not all ports on PCs have enough power for especially Ipads.   Try USB port at back of PC (ones directly connected to motherboard, instead of front ports or keyboard ports.   Front ones frequently have lower power delivery specs than back ones.

You need to re-install "Apple Mobile Device Support". THis will the charging issue Windows users face.


Any way to have CPU temperature in the menu bar? I tried SMC fan control and Temperature Monitor but it does not update the temperature and I do not wish to change the fan speed.

Temperature Monitor was last updated in 2009. So maybe it is not compatible with your OS.

I recently abandoned the fantastic MenuMeters (free) for iStat Menus 5, since the later provides even more info on practically all Mac sensors. Hardware Monitor and System Monitor are also capable of showing sensor information in the menu bar.

It is best achieved by installing CleanMyMac X and have it in the menu bar. It will update you with CPU temp., Memory, battery too


How can I convert an m4a to mov? I have a m4a audio file that I need to convert to a mov file. How can I do this?

This creates an x264-encoded mov file with image.png as the background:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i image.png -i audio.m4a -c:a copy -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -pix_fmt yuv420p -shortest output.mov

You can use mp4 or mkv as the container by just changing the name of the output file.

-c:a copy disables re-encoding the audio.

-loop 1 loops the image infinitely so that it is not shown for just one frame. It also makes the video stream infinitely long, so -shortest is needed to finish encoding after the audio stream finishes. -shortest has to be after the input files in new versions of ffmpeg.

-crf (constant rate factor) can be from 0 (lossless) to 51 (lowest quality). If you remove -pix_fmt yuv420p, ffmpeg uses yuv444p, which is not supported by many video players.

You can use a black background by replacing -loop 1 -i image.png with -f lavfi -i color=c=black:s=1280x720. You can resize an image by adding an option like -filter:v '[in] scale=-1:720, pad=1280:720:640-iw/2 [out]'.

More information:

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/EncodeforYouTube
https://superuser.com/questions/98980
http://tdb0.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/how-to-upload-a-song-without-a-music-video-to-youtube/

This can be accomplished with VLC.

Please refer to the following transcoding instructions.


Symlinks broken with vmhgfs on fusion When I use VMware Fusion with an Ubuntu guest (it worked long ago, but this problem has existed over several generations of ubuntu, at least including natty, oneiric and precise) and shared folders using vmhgfs, no matter what I do, many of my symlinks are broken.

The ones that are broken are symlinks that point to files in subdirectories, such as foo -> bar/blah.  They're broken because they're presented to linux as foo->bar.

Anyone have any idea what's going wrong?  This has, in the past worked for me, but it just doesn't now.  It seems like a bug in vmhgfs.

Please don't suggest using NFS, SMB, etc.  I'm specifically interested in getting HGFS working.

the following solution does not properly fit the original question, as it does not provide a solution to use symlinks in the host as symlinks within guests. nevertheless it can be useful in certain situations, specially for windows guests:

Adding ...

sharedFolderX.followSymlinks = "TRUE"

to your .vmx file, where X stands for any given shared folder in question, makes the symlink transparent to the guest. so the symlinks now show as a regular file or folder within the guest. the mapping take place in the host.

this works for the following versions and above

VMware ACE 2.0.x
VMware Fusion 2.x
VMware Player 2.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 6.x (Linux)

as of Dec 24, 2013.

please refer to the VMware KB article Symbolic Links Do Not Work in Folders Shared Between Linux/Mac Hosts and Windows Guests (1007277) for more details and affected/supported versions.

---- edit by Martin (as comments not yet allowed).
---- credits also to Mike as he provided the link to the VMware KB in his answer.

I am working around this by using smb sharing instead of hgfs:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2089295

sudo apt-get install smbfs
sudo mkdir /mnt/foo_smb
echo "username=foo" > /etc/samba/user # where foo is my username on the host.

Add this line to /etc/fstab

//172.16.241.1/foo /mnt/foo_smb cifs noauto,credentials=/etc/samba/user,rw,uid=bar 0 0

where bar is my username on the guest.  Finally

sudo mount /mnt/foo_smb

on the guest.

UNFORTUNATELY, after upgrading to os x 10.8.2 recently, this stopped working.  Apparrently apple has replaced their SMB server with something called SMBX.

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.cifs/3517

Attempting to mount with the fstab entry above now gives

mount error(22): Invalid argument
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs)

This can be partially worked around by adding the extra options

iocharset=utf8,nounix,noserverinfo,sec=ntlmssp

but unfortunately the nounix option means that symlinks will not work.

Another option is to add something like

sharedFolder0.followSymlinks = "TRUE"

to the vmx file, but this means symlinks will look like regular files, not symlinks.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007277


Chrome taking up CPU on particular urls At least a few times a day I get disturbed by high Chrome CPU usage... I have to open Chrome's Task Manager and see which tab is taking up CPU.

For example https://www.ethereum.org/ always takes 20-30% CPU.

Today I had the same happen on a TechCrunch url.

Could it be some extension? I just checked https://www.ethereum.org/ in Incognito tab with almost no extensions and it was the same - high CPU load (30%!)

I'm seriously considering swithcing to Safari because of this and some other issues with Chrome recently :/

Any comments / solutions to this?

Safari 7 is documented in many Mavericks reviews to be better at extending battery life and CPU usage. That ethereal link has an animation in the background, I'm assuming that's what's using your CPU.

You better uninstall Chrome: sloppy programming and not very safe. If you want some other browser than Safari, use Firefox or Opera.
You can also uninstall the Google Updater (which is secretly installed at the same time): read here how to do that
http://raamdev.com/2008/howto-remove-google-software-update-on-mac-os-x/
this also works in Mavericks.


How can I install es_AR locale on OSX El Capitan? I'm trying to install a locale on OSX (El Capitan) and I can't figure it out.

I've been googling for hours now.

In Ubuntu is as simple as locale-gen and dpkg-reconfigure.

I'm coding a PHP application that uses es_AR as a locale and I can't get my number formatting right.

Works fine in Linux systems.

$ locale -a | grep es
es_ES
es_ES.ISO8859-1
es_ES.ISO8859-15
es_ES.UTF-8

You would set that up in the Languages and Region setting in System Preferences

Under the advanced tab, you can set your number formatting


For my iPhone, why is the "restore from backup" option not available in iTunes? I'm trying to back up and restore my iPhone using iTunes in order to attempt to get my supposedly successful carrier unlock from Chronic Unlocks to work. This is what Chronic Unlocks support recommended.

I have synced my iPhone to my computer in iTunes and confirmed that I have a recent backup.

I followed the instructions from Apple under "restore from a backup", but when i ctrl-click on my iPhone under "devices" in iTunes, "Restore from backup" is not visible in the contextual menu. It only shows:

Eject
Sync
Transfer purchases
Back up
Reset warnings

How can I restore my iPhone using this backup I have?

Mac OS 10.9.4
iTunes 10.7 (update: had to downgrade from iTunes 11 using these instructions in order to have iTunes recognize and back up my iPhone running iOS 5).
iPhone 4, iOS 5.0.1

Apologies - to get the picture in, I need to 'answer' rather than comment...

I'm really not certain whether it's because you're on an old version, or that your machine can see no backup, but I get a totally different Backup section

I'm not sure I can contribute further, sorry - because I don't remember how iTunes 10 looked & I'm on iOS 7 myself.

There is the possibility that Apple has essentially locked out iOS 5 now - but please don't take my word for it; I've seen posts about it but have no authoritative answer.

(Please don't -1 me for this 'non-answer', folks ;-)

I faced the same problem. Just enter your Apple ID and password.


Possible to uninstall OS X apps without admin password? I have a school issued MacBook Air with several apps installed. While they were downloaded from the App Store using my personal Apple ID, I need an administrator password, which I don't have, in order to delete them. Is there a way to do this without adding another account?

No, but you can revoke the computer from your AppleID account.

you can by putting it in the trash and then emptying your trash!

https://superuser.com?             it will show you


Is possible auto-refresh the Shared Links sidebar in Safari 7? Is possible to set auto refresh for the Shared Links sidebar in the new Safari 7.
There's in "View" menu > Refresh Shared Links, but this doesn't have a shortcut to refresh. So either a way to have the list auto-refresh or assigning a shortcut would help.

This has been fixed in Safari 7.0.1 (which is included in OS X 10.9.1):

About the update
The OS X Mavericks v10.9.1 Update is recommended for all OS X Mavericks users. It improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac. This update includes:
…

Includes Safari 7.0.1

…

Updates Shared Links periodically when open in the Safari Sidebar

Source: About the OS X Mavericks v10.9.1 Update

You can add a shortcut for any menu items in System Preferences > Keyboards > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts


Why does the menubar hide when I'm in iTunes? Often when I'm using iTunes 10.4, the menubar will hide and show like the dock does when you set it that way. I don't know of any settings that allow for that to happen on the menubar. Is it a bug or a setting that I accidentaly changed?

It sounds like you're running iTunes in full screen mode if you're on Lion. In the top right corner you should have a button with two arrows that allows you to switch between full screen mode and regular mode.

just move the cursor to the top border of the screen


Can't delete file on external USB drive I am running Mavericks on a Mac Mini. I was attempting to move my iPhoto library to a different Mac by copying it onto an external USB drive. The iPhoto Library is 98GB.

I left it running for 3 hours, when I came back it said it had 14 days to complete.  So I tried to cancel.  The Finder popup said "Stopping..." but stuck there.

I have since rebooted the Mac but Finder says the file is still on the USB drive. If I tried to delete it again it just says "Deleting..." and then Finder freezes.

It seems like the iPhoto Library that I tried to copy is corrupted on the USB drive and now it can't be deleted.  Finder says the file is 98GB even though it still had 14 days to run.

How can I get rid of this file?

Try deleting it with Terminal:

rm -rf /Volumes/diskname/path/to/folder

This command will remove (forcefully and recursively) the path given. Be careful when entering the path to ensure you delete the correct folder, as there's no protection against deleting everything. Note that Terminal will show no progress whilst this is being carried out — the prompt will return when it's complete.

You can attempt to remove the file using Terminal:

rm -rf /Volumes/[DriveName]/[Path]

Or if that fails format in Disk Utility.


How do I request a read receipt when sending e-mail with Outlook for Mac 2011? I've been using MAC OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5. How do I request a read receipt when sending e-mail with Outlook for Mac 2011?

Outlook:Mac doesn't have the read receipt feature.

And, frankly, you shouldn't use read receipts.  Most mail clients can be set up to simply ignore read receipt requests.  If the mail client isn't ignoring read receipt requests, then it gives the reader a message asking if the reader wants to send a read receipt; many people select no.  The existence of a read receipt doesn't actually tell you whether your reader read your mail.

There is a new app that let you integrate read receipts in apple mail, both incoming and outgoing ones. Check http://www.ireceiptmail.com ;) It does not work with Outlook though...


Is it possible to have more waypoints in Maps.app on OSX? Is it possible to have waypoints, or multiple destinations, when getting route directions in the Maps.app on OSX Mavericks?

I would like to change the route like one can by dragging the route in Google Maps, or by adding a waypoint of a city I want the route to go through.

Is this accomplishable?

No, so far! Hopefully, apple will add that option to the next update?

I just checked into this, and I cannot find a way to make these types of adjustments.  Pitty!


How to sync passwords between Chrome and iCloud Keychain I'd like to use Chrome (currently Version 57.0.2987.133 (64-bit)) and on my iPad I'd like to use Safari (obviously). Since 10.10 the sync between Chrome and MacOS Keychain stopped working for me.

Is there any trick to make this work again?

1Password or other 3rd party password managers are currently no option for me, as I don't trust their security. (see here or here)

I found this:

  You can no longer share Google Chrome passwords with iCloud Keychain.
  Google Chrome 45 was the last one that could do it. Since then its
  been removed as an option.

  Perhaps reaching out to Google Support and giving them something to
  pass on to the devs for Chrome for Mac could inspire something.

  Until they replace it, I recommend using a 3rd Party option since they
  work with nearly every platform and device type. Such as LastPass,
  Dashlane, Roboform, Keepass, 1Password, Privacy, GNOME keyring, etc.

  They may work with Keychain and gather passwords saved in Chrome.
  Thats the only auto-sync solution that is available.

You can use Apple Keychain passwords in Chrome on iOS (you cannot update them or create new ones from Chrome).


SATA 2 SSD in Mac Pro '09 I have an early 2009 Mac Pro(4,1). Firmware upgraded to a '10(5,1), 24GB RAM, upgraded processors to two quad core 3.46 GHz Xeons', NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 2GB. I'm looking at the next upgrade options and an SSD comes to mind. As you probably know, the '09 and '10 have SATA II, not III.
What I want to know is the performance gain from a HDD to a SSD running at SATA II, as opposed to III, worth the upgrade? Can SATA II SSDs be found at a lower price than SATA III drives, if they can be found at all?

I know I can either get a SATA III card or a PCI SSD and not have the performance hit, but that adds enough to the cost of the upgrade to not fit in the budget at this time.

Empirically, the answer is 'Yes'.

I have a very similar machine - 4,1 -> 5,1, dual 3.46GHZ Xeons, 64GB RAM & also an older 3,1.

Both now have an SATA III 840 EVO 1TB as boot drive [best available at the time of purchase] in the first optical drive bay [leaving room for your usual 4 HDs in the regular bays. Adapter bracket a few quid/dollars/shekels from eBay.
On the 4,1 it connects directly to the cabling in the bay, the 3,1 needs a longer SATA cable down into the main body, under the cooling fans, where the two 'secret' SATA ports are.

No, they don't run at SATA III speeds, but boy do they make the entire machine more responsive. Boot time down from a couple of minutes to 15 seconds. iTunes [the slowest to launch that I know of] now launches in about 5 seconds. Finder is zippy & responsive, no more waiting for it to fill a window.

You get so used to the speed you don't notice it until you have to use a machine with a spinning HD again.

Speed test - SSD

Speed test - HD

You seem to have answered your own question. If a SATA III card is available but not in the budget, you might as well get SATA III SSD now and add the card later.

SATA II data transfers over the connecting cable occur at a faster rate than the internal speed of a HDD. SATA II cable transfers are slower than the internal speed of a SSD. This is why SATA III created.

HDDs internally have a transfer rate of about 200 MB/s, where as SSDs have an internal transfer rate of over 400 MB/s. When a SSD uses a SATA II interface, the  actual transfer rate is limited to 300 MB/s. When using a SATA III interface, a SSD is not limited by the interface itself.
Therefore, there is about a 50% performance improvement when a SDD replaces a HDD using a SATA II connection. But, to truly see an improvement, you will need to SATA III connection.

Drive manufactures now offer drives that include both SSD and HDD components. Externally, the drives appear as single devices, but internally cache frequently used data in the SSD. This can give SSD performance at HDD prices. These drives are often referred to as Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD).

Apple offer their own version of SSHD technology. These drives are referred to as Fusion Drives. The difference is that OS X is aware the the Fusion Drive is actually a HDD and SSD paired together. When a Fusion Drive is installed, you have to use Core Storage when partitioning the drives.


Remote desktop apps for OS X Mavericks 10.9 I have tried CoRD, Microsoft Remote Desktop and RDC but all three are not compatible with Mavericks 10.9

Can someone recommend how I can connect to my Windows 7 computer from my mac?

In the past, I've used LogMeIn to remotely connect to a Windows 7 system from my Mac. It's perfectly compatible with OSX Mavericks, reputable, and secure. I highly recommend it.

2x client

its a bit more difficult to setup if you don't know what you are doing.  but I have gotten it to work with one of my clients.  about to try it again with another.


Send a (push) message to everyone who is in the range of my Wi-Fi router? I have a large property and rent it out to clients who rented a holiday home. Now I would like to send to everybody an automatic message over Wi-Fi.

I have an old router with Wi-Fi, for example to let all (in the Wi-Fi range) the people know that we have today a BBQ. How could I achieve this?

The only way I can think of doing this over wi-fi is if you have a captive portal, where the users have to accept a TOS each day for example - you could then amend the portal page to include your daily message. There are some open source options available but you'll likely need to purchase a dedicated router/hotspot.

Another option would be to use Bluetooth/iBeacons - a lot of people leave it switched on so they can easily connect with speakers/car kits etc, and there's a lot of options available - a quick Google for "Bluetooth push advertising" or "iBeacon" should help. It's possible to set the low cost RaspberryPi up as an iBeacon, depending on your technical knowledge!

Or use Yadwire system for in-browser injection over WiFi


Are the 4 LCD screws to fix the LCD replacement in an iPad critical? I just successfully replaced the front glass of my 3th Gen iPad WiFi, but when I cleaned up my desk, I found out I forget to use the 4 LCD screws:

Is it worth it working another hour to open up the iPad again and place those screws in place? Or are the adhesives strong enough to keep the LCD in place?

Go back in unless you are worried you will break it the second entry.

Adhesives won't hold under vibration and shock like a screw will and the screw pressure is what helps set the adhesive in the first place.

The might be important for keeping it from falling apart with rough use, but if the adhesive is good, you should be OK.  I did this once and I put a duck tape on the edge of my Ipad just to make sure the digitizer and LCD wouldn't come off.  I didn't heat the adhesive because I didn't want to spend another hour or two prying off tiny shards of glass the next time the screen broke.  The duck tape might not look great to some people, but it gave it a little extra padding and worked well until I broke the screen again.  I am in the process of replacing the screen for the second time and it's a lot easier to cut the duck tape than it is to work with that nasty adhesive.


How to remove folder/account from list of messages (OS X 10.1 Mail) I just upgraded to Yosemite and I noticed in Mail that the folder/account are listed in the Inbox section right after the subject. I don't remember seeing this before. Is there a way (terminal flag, perhaps) to turn this off so the Subject of the message isn't truncated?

This is an important feature because it creates a quick visual tool to let you know what Inbox it's located in without actually opening the message or right clicking on your To: address. When using universal inbox like this, it's important, however the subject line isn't truncated because of this, the subject line gets truncated based of the width of your Sort Column or 'Messages' Column. In fact, even the inbox account name gets truncated when the column width is less than stellar. Simply enlarge the column width to an appropriate size that makes you happy. Otherwise, the only option you could do is turn off the contact photos which will give you an extra 100 pixels or so of space. You can find that setting in Preferences > Viewing > Show contact Photos in the message list

To answer the question specifically though, it's truncated because of the column width, alter the size and it will no longer be truncated.


macOS Sierra doesn’t seem to remember SSH keys between reboots I have to run this command since upgrading to macOS:

ssh-add -K

Corrects the problem after the reboot but I have to run this command every time I log on to my computer.

If I do not run the command above, my keys in ~/.ssh are skipped and I am being asked server password in order to establish the connection.

As of macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Apple added an ssh_config option called UseKeychain which allows a 'proper' resolution to the problem. Add the following to your ~/.ssh/config file:
Host *
   AddKeysToAgent yes
   UseKeychain yes

From the ssh_config man page on 10.12.2:

UseKeychain
On macOS, specifies whether the system should search for passphrases in the user's keychain when attempting to use a particular key. When the passphrase is provided by the user, this option also specifies whether the passphrase should be stored into the keychain once it has been verified to be correct.  The argument must be 'yes' or 'no'.  The default is 'no'.

Amending ~/.ssh/config to add UseKeyChain for all hosts
is enough to stop this recurring nightmare ;)

Host *
 UseKeychain yes

If the file is empty or doesn't exist simple create and/or add the above configuration.


Hide the Finder sidebar permanently I've Googled for this a little bit, and I wasn't able to find an obvious answer, so is it possible to hide the Finder sidebar completely? So that it never comes back until I tell it to? The same goes for the toolbar.

Thanks for any help you can provide. :)

Extra info:

I am using OS X Mountain Lion on this Mac.

defaults write com.apple.finder ShowSidebar -bool false; killall Finder

ShowToolbar -bool false didn't seem to work.

New Finder windows in Mountain Lion appear to behave as in previous versions:

Create a new Finder window in any manner--Command-N, click on Finder in dock, etc. Adjust this window as to screen location, size, view style--everything customizable. Close the window -- and all future new Finder windows will be exactly as you have set.


My MacBook Pro is not sleeping when I close the lid on battery I purchased my macbook back in 2011, and this problem just started. When I unplug and close my computer to put it in my backpack for school, it does not sleep. I take it out and its very hot and has lost a large amount of battery. My energy saver controls say it should sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity, but either way it should sleep when I close the lid. I don't have any sharing options checked or any running apps that should be keeping it awake so I have no idea what could be causing this

Have a look at this answer which indicates the commands to help you analyse if any process is blocking the sleep of your MacBook.
If nothing is blocking it, then look at :

egrep -i 'sleep|wake' /var/log/kernel.log

and look if you see a sleep line at the time you close the lid. If you don't, look at any information message in:

/var/log/kernel.log

around the instant this event should have happened.
Create a test account, close your session, and open one with this test account. Is your MacBook entering sleep when you close the lid?

I have a MacBook Pro 13" A1278 (Mid-2010). I had the same problem. When I closed the lid, the screen remained on wouldn't shut off but I could manually put it to sleep from the Apple menu. Now keep in mind this all happened with no battery in the laptop. I just put in a new battery tonight and voila! Sleep mode works again!! I troubleshooted for hours. No more worrying about the power cable falling out.


How do I turn off "Find my iPhone" on my device without wi-fi? My wifi greyed out/dimmed for no obvious reason. To restore my iPhone I am required to turn off "Find my iPhone".

Since I can't get access to wifi through my device (it needs Apple ID password), how can I turn the that off?

I tried doing it through iCloud.com but it needs to be turned off through the device itself (which then eventually shows on iTunes).

I've contacted the Apple support team but they haven't helped much.

You can restore your device by putting it in Recovery Mode first. This will restore your device regardless of settings on the device, including Find my iPhone.

Turn your device off.
Hold Home as you connect the USB cable until you see the following screen:

You should see the following message in iTunes:

  iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore this iPhone before it can be used with iTunes.

Restore the device in iTunes.

Needs ID as a precaution against theft. Obviously a thief would not necessarily have ID and wish not to be tracked


How accurate is the location detection on the iPhone's Find My iPhone app How accurate is the GPS on the iPhone's Find My iPhone app?

I used Find My iPhone app to track a friend. The first 3 stops were dead on but when it refreshed it showed them to be several streets over from actual location. What could cause that?

The generic answer you can find at Apple support website

About location precision or accuracy
Depending on your device and available services, Location Services uses a combination of cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS to determine your location. If you're not within a clear line of sight to GPS satellites, your device can determine your location using crowd-sourced Wi-Fi and cell tower locations or iBeacons.

If you want to have specific numbers, in meters, approximately they would be next (according to the 2009 study):

3G iPhone w/ A-GPS ~ 8 meters
3G iPhone w/ WiFi ~ 74 meters
3G iPhone w/ Cellular positioning ~ 600 meters

In 2011 Dr. Zandbergen tested several Android smart phones. Here he found the accuracies to be slightly better than the 2009 study. They ranged from 5-8 meters. It is likely that the iPhone 4S/5 is within this range as well. It can also be assumed that iPads and other Android tablets will be comparable.

GPS doesn't use Satellites.
It is all ground based antenna arrays.
Cells use mostly cell tower triangulation.


How to show all running processes on macOS/OS X? How do I see a list of all running processes/tasks on macOS/OS X?

Inside Terminal, you can type ps aux

Terminal is available under the utilities folder in the App folder.

Okay, look what I found:

You can use
 - Dock
 - Launch Menu (Just press Command + Option + ESC)
 - Install special app for that (e.g. Activity Monitor)
 - Look using terminal
 - Or use console commands

and that is not the full list! I founded all these methods here: https://osxtips.net/view-processes-mac/

Ofc, you can watch by yourself for more using google, bing, etc. C:


Considerations for granting read and write privileges to MacHD for "everyone"? What are the potential dangers to be wary of when changing the root drives read/write permission? Specifically, granting "everyone" read/write access?

E.g. will I be opening up my computer to potential malware attacks/viruses and such? Will I be compromising my system integrity? Will it be easier for me to catastrophically damage or erase my entire system? Am I just being paranoid?

Use case: I've recently installed Avid's Media Composer | First and while I can use external drives (and likely a partition of my internal SSD), as is I am unable to use the internal drive for writing media files (like renders and when ingesting files.) Of note, I can "link" to files just fine, but importing to Avid codecs requires a drive the app can write to. When I launch the application without any external drives mounted, I get this warning:

Per the Avid Knowledge Base a solution involves changing the write protection for the drive's root folder so as to allow Media Composer | First to create and populate its "Avid Media Files" folder:

  Solution:

  If you do need to use the system drive as a media drive, take the following steps to change permissions

  Click on your system (Macintosh HD in most cases) drive to highlight
  From the File menu select Get Info (cmd+I)
  Click the lock icon in the bottom right to make changes
  Click on the “Read only” text in the Privilege column next to Everyone and set the privilege to “Read & Write”
  You should now be able to see the system drive as a valid media drive.

  Note: If you repair permissions on the system drive, they will reset and you will have to repeat this procedure.

For whatever it is worth, I am the only user of this particular computer and I do have it backed up regularly with Time Machine. Partly I am asking for my own understanding, but also, if I were trying to set up a family member with this free editing software and they also let their kids use the laptop, it seems like granting everyone read/write might be make for more of a potential problem or accidents? Am I being overly cautious, or perhaps, by making the change, eagerly risky?

"Everyone" means all users, so yes, there is a risk, but only if someone already got into your system, and at that point they might already be brute-forcing your root password(when they've got it they're almost unstoppable). So as long as nothing bad gets into your system everything's fine and opening up your hard drive for everyone to edit doesn't rise the risk of that happening.


Apple Watch notifications going to watch or phone intelligently My watch and phone work really well together, if I'm wearing my watch then notifications pop up there first and don't show on my phone. When I take my watch off or when I'm using my phone the notifications appear on my phone.

However on my girlfriends watch the notifications pop up first on her phone, then on her watch a couple of second later, no matter the 'state' of either device. I can't find any setting mismatches. Is there a setting somewhere which causes the behaviour I'm getting?

This depends on the general behaviour of the apple watch. Make sure your apple watch is on your wrist before testing this.

Notification distribution is depend on you are wearing it or not.


Why does Apple not support Power Nap on some of the Macs that have Power Nap capability? Apple has already released the OS X Mountain Lion Technical Specifications which lists some Macs as excluded from certain features of Mountain Lion including:

Power Nap

When is a Mac excluded from a this feature? Is it a hardware limitation?

I ask because I learned that AirDrop for example is excluded from some Macs as they don't support the ad-hoc Wi-Fi networking which is required to use AirDrop over Wi-Fi.

I heard that Power Nap might require Intel‘s Smart Connect Technology and is therefore excluded from most Macs. However, this is unlikely to be true as the MacBook Air (Late 2010 Mid 2011 or newer) is already listed as supported - but Intel's Smart Connect was just about to be announced around 2011.

Some 2010 hardware, for which firmware was apparently seeded by Apple (example: MBA13SMCSeed_2010.smc within publicly available 2010MBA13.pkg), is currently unlisted under Power Nap in the specifications.

Only the MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer), MacBook Pro with Retina display were originally supported supported for Power Nap. The reason for this is An SMC update is required to gain all the functionality of Power Nap, and these are the only models Apple has chosen to actively write the firmware updates to support the feature. In other words, it's not that Apple runs some exclusion script to keep other models out; it takes an active update to the firmware to make a model run Power Nap, and they've chosen to do that for two particular lines of computers.

In a subsequent firmware update, Apple included Mid 2010 MacBook Air models in Power Nap.

As far as why they've made that decision, we enter the realm of speculation, but fortunately, we have some good information here.

The idea behind Power Nap is that when the computer appears to be asleep, from time to time, it actually wakes up and performs various tasks. This waking, however, is not noticeable to the user because the computer remains dark and silent. This means no audio or video is activated. It also means, of particular relevance to this question, the fan is also kept off.

This requires a storage device that can run without a fan and a processor that can run without a fan (sorry notoriously hot G5 — I doubt there would ever be a way to support you for this).

According to John Siracusa's epic Mountain Lion review, the Dark Wake mode that Power Nap invokes does not turn on the fans. Thus, only devices Apple knows are designed to be able to access their storage without risk of overheating (as a spinning hard drive might) will take advantage of Power Nap. Siracusa suggests that third party SSDs might have a different heat profile.

While SSDs could be installed in any computer, and Apple could perhaps write firmware updates for all their Macs so that Power Nap checks to see if the computer has a SSD drive and if so, runs Power Nap, they haven't chosen to do so. Instead, they've made Power Nap work only on those models of computer that they know will have a SSD drive.

The limitation might not be drive-based; it could be the processor that can't run silently. This seems slightly less likely to me, given the supported models, but it could explain why the 2010 MacBook Air is excluded. Power Nap monitors temperature, and if the system gets too hot to run without cooling, Power Nap disengages, but if the processor in earlier MBAs was triggering such an alert too often, that may be why Apple removed them from the list of models that support Power Nap.

tl;dr: likely it's hardware; specifically, heat.

Only Mid-2011 or newer MacBook Air models and Retina-display MacBook Pro models with factory SSDs support the feature; even then, they may need a firmware upgrade. See Mountain Lion's PowerNap feature requires firmware update.


How to voice activate iPhone without touching it? How to voice activate an iPhone without touching it? Illinois' law states cell phone use must be hands free. I realize they intend for you to use a hands-free kit. How come when, at least when it rings, I can't tell Siri to answer it onto speaker phone? Why isn't she listening for commands like the star ship Enterprise?

At the moment is not possible, but this is one of the features of the upcoming iOS 8:

  With iOS 8, users won't have to have their iPhone or iPad in their hands to invoke Siri. Instead, the device will listen for the voice prompt "Hey Siri" to initiate.

iOS 8, out this fall, will have this feature integrated. For now, get an Android and say OK Google to activate Google Now.

Car companies will roll out the Apple CarPlay technology soon on their entertainment systems, which has built-in Siri integration for hands-free commands.


Is it 'OK' to use the root user as a normal user? I have enabled the root user on my Mac so I can log into it and run Finder etc. Being the lazy person that I am, just transferred everything from my home directory to /var/root. I'm not too sure of doing this, so I may move everything back. Is it technically 'OK' to be using this like a normal user? (I am the only one who can access my computer.)

Using your computer logged in as root all the time is like always carrying around all your keys, your passport, $5,000 in cash, that piece of paper with all your passwords written on it and the only photo you have of Flopsy, the adorable rabbit whose death broke your seven-year-old heart. Oh, and a chainsaw.

Which is to say, it's mighty convenient from time to time, because it means you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, without needing to go back home to get stuff or talk to your bank manager. But it also puts you at great risk of losing stuff, having it stolen (don't think that chainsaw will help you: you'll be streets away before you notice your wallet's gone), doing things you really regret later (impulse-buying plane tickets to Vegas while drunk), taking dangerous shortcuts (chainsawing through the lion enclosure fence because that's the fastest way to the pandas) and over-reacting (chainsawing your neighbour's car because his dog barks too much). And, when you think about it, mostly, you're just going to the office, going grocery shopping, hanging out with your friends. You don't need all that stuff with you all the time just for the convenience of needing it, what?, once a month? Once a week?

So, no, it's not OK to use the root account all the time. It gives you a tiny amount of convenience but puts you in a lot of danger. There's the danger of stupid mistakes having catastrophic results ("Hey, why is rm -rf * taking so long to run? **** I'm in /!"). There's the danger of acclimating yourself to the idea that all files are equal and you can just mess about with whatever you want, anywhere in the directory tree. There's the danger that any hack to your account is immediately a hack to the whole system, so now every single piece of software on your machine is security-critical. And even if you think you don't care about your machine getting hacked (after all, that photo of Flopsy is a real piece of glossy paper, not some ephemeral JPEG), I care about your machine getting hacked because then it's on the botnet that's mounting the DDOS attack against whatever internet service I can't access today.

Root is your spiderman costume. It gives you great power but requires great responsibility. It's there in the closet whenever you need it, so you don't have to wear it all the time.

Simply use SUDO
My guess is the OP does not know how easy it is to use sudo on the occasions you need to use root.
OP, all your problems are over. Immediately restore your Mac to a normal state.
And just use sudo as needed.  Phew.


How do people hack iPhone games so easily? I have seen high scores of 999,999  on Flappy Bird as well as many other impossible high scores on games such as Temple Run, etc., on iPhone and iPad.

How do people hack these games so easily when they cannot see the source code?  It seems like they know the source code of the game, which makes them able to manipulate the game file so easily.  I don't understand how this happens given that the Apple iPhone is sandboxed, unlike Android.

iOS applications store their data in files that are available from a computer in two easily-accessible ways:

Inside an iTunes backup
Via a MobileDevice-framework-based tool such as iExplorer

In my experience, game save data is stored in a fairly ordinary property list file that is manipulable via the plutil tool.  The data can be restored and replaced without any code knowledge.  From there it's a simple matter of how much the app trusts its save data.

For an example of how this can be used not just for high scores, but to cheat at a game, see the Nimble Quest iOS Trainer, which is itself MobileDevice-framework-based.

(The MobileDevice framework is an Apple private framework created for iOS device access, which has been reverse-engineered to enable the creation of iOS device tools not available from Apple.)

Its very simple to hack games even clash of clans almost all the games i have are hacked


Gifting in iTunes to people in other countries Christmas is coming up, and I'm currently living in a country (UK) that's a completely different iTunes store from my family (US).  So I'm wondering if I can gift things in the iTunes store if I'm in a different country than the recipient.  If I gift something from the UK store, can someone in the US download the items?  I'm not even sure if there's a way for me to go to the US version, let alone try to gift an item from there.

According to Apple support, from the U.S., you can gift physical goods to:

  Mexico, 15 countries in Europe, and four countries in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand).

Those 15 European countries are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom. Anywhere else and it seems you need a credit card with a billing address in the target country to send gifts.

However, this does NOT apply to gifting apps:

  [iTunes] Gift Cards and Certificates are valid for use only in the country in which they were purchased. Only residents of the U.S may redeem gift certificates purchased in the U.S.

Amazon seems the best way to go. You can't workaround it and make a fake account in the USA unless you use a credit card from the USA. I was wondering this also since I'm in Canada trying to send a gift to the USA  or China but I guess I'll just try to find another online gift to send.


iPhone storage is full while iCloud is empty What can I send to iCloud and how do I do that? My iPhone is full and my iCloud has barely been used. Can you help me please?

The biggest thing that takes up storage is photos. If you're running iOS 9 or later, then go to Settings -> iCloud -> Photos and enable iCloud Photo Library. Then, make sure optimize iPhone storage is checked. Also, delete any apps that you may not use. Pay close attention to games. They eat up the most space. Switching to a streaming music service like Music or Spotify will also let you free up space by deleting music on your device.

You can go to Setting>General>Usage to check what us takes up your iPhone storage.
Mostly, there are photos, videos, songs etc. So you can thansfer these data to iCloud.

You can also backup all your data to iCloud and then delete backup, and photos, videos, songs from your iPhone. So as to get storage on iPhone.

To get more storage back, you can also try to delete the junk files, such as Safari cookies, caches, history etc. And the fast way to do this is uninstall and reinstall the app who eat up you so much storage.


What is covering my iPhone camera? Just today I noticed something new covering my iPhone camera lens. It looks like a shutter or aperture blade over the optics, but knowing that the iPhone has neither, I'm really confused. The camera is able to take pictures still, but I can't imagine this would help. I have not dropped the phone to my recent knowledge and I do not believe this "blade" was covering the optics yesterday.

You could clean the lens of your iPhone internally and see what that black object is that blocks the clear view. I've done this when some dust or tiny particles slip into the iPhone...

It's very easy and you won't do any harm with it,  if you follow the instructions carefully!

Open up your iPhone according to the tutorial on iFixit
Use a slightly moistened ear-swab to clean up your iPhone lens

To reassemble your iPhone, just follow the steps on iFixit in reverse order.

If you find a piece has slipped, once correcting that, you can also clear out all dust from your lens and it can solve your issue.


How do I enable the one-handed keyboard? I would like to enable a different keyboard layout for one-handed use. I know it's possible, since it was mentioned at WWDC 2017, but how do I do it?

Settings doesn’t have an option to enable a one-handed keyboard:

In the Keyboards list, there is no one-handed keyboard either.

Keyboard switching icon

Hold down on the keyboard switching icon (usually a globe or smiling face) and on the last menu item, pick the right or left option. Note that this only works when more than one keyboard is enabled because the keyboard switching icon only shows when needed.

The 3 keyboard icons are for enabling the one-handed layout.

If you pick the left option, you'll be able to use the keyboard with only your left hand, and the same is true with the right option. The center option makes the keyboard two-handed again.

Settings app

In the Keyboard settings (Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> One Handed Keyboard), you can select between the keyboards.

This method works regardless of how many keyboards you’ve enabled.

Here's an example of the right-handed keyboard:

You have to turn off zoomed view in display and brightness settings. Then the one hand keyboard option will show up.


Why does OS X show a forgot password prompt when trying to boot or wakeup screen? Something came up today that bugged me a bit, I left my laptop on battery power before going to bed. When starting it up the battery was dead. I plugged it in, and here is what happened:

The startup progress bar came up for a while and then a forgot password prompt came up, with questions like:
"set a new password"
+ 2 other options that I can't remember (they weren't relevant)
and a previous and next arrows.

Puzzled, I hit previous and the dialog froze. I proceeded to restart again and ended up on the same dialog, I reset my password to the same as my previous and that was it.

Any idea what might have happened?

Brian's answer was right on. The issue in my case was related to the backlight. Here's how I got around it:

While the password dialog is up, move your mouse cursor to the top of the screen until you get an apple menu.
Select "Restart" from the Apple menu
Use a flashlight to shine a light through the Apple on the back of your MacBook screen and you should see that the computer is on, but the backlight is not.
Use the right and left arrow keys to toggle between accounts and hit enter to login on the one you want, using the flashlight to see what you are doing.
Once logged in, the backlight should function normally.

I have not determined the root cause yet.

This has nothing to do with backlight.
I've had the same issue on my iMac. I actually found out that it was the guest account having problems login in (no idea why). Upon selecting "my password is not working with my keyboard" and inputing the guest account pw, it unlocked/decrypted my iMac.

So if you have a guest account, try this out.


How can I remove this icon from the menu bar? I am seeing attached icon in the top right menu bar. I tried deleting MenuExtras by going to /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extrasbut it didn't help, please help to hide or remove it.

That item is the VMWare fusion menu bar icon.

The vendor has this article and steps to allow you to disable and configure it.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015330

To modify the behavior of this feature:

Go to Virtual Machine > Settings.
Click Application Menu (Applications in Fusion 3).
Click the Applications Menu tab if using Fusion 3.
From the Show applications menu in menu bar drop-down, choose Always, Never, or Only when Fusion is running.

spotlight -> activity monitor -> search for fusion -> kill the process


Adding song to iTunes Playlist stuck on "in progress" or error 11.444 So, I'm trying to make a playlist for a party this weekend, and it's horrible. iTunes more often than not shows "in progress" when adding one single song (this shouldn't take longer than 1 second, I recon) and finally, it will just show a ! with "Due to error 11.444".

I can't find anything about this error, and I have quite some songs left to add, so I'm hoping to find a solution here.

Edit: The same seems to sometimes happen whenever I restart iTunes after I can't successfully add a song, but then with "Making your iCloud music library available"

Edit 2: Sometimes it also goes as expected for at least a few songs, only to result in the same "processing" and then ! again.

Here are some screenshots, where I tried to add 2 whole songs to the playlist:

Heb jij al een oplossing gevonden? Ik heb precies hetzelfde probleem en kom er ook niet uit. Fijne zondag en hartelijke groet, Dees


What is the correct way to install python on OS X? Im learning python programming, what is the correct way to install python on Mavericks 10.9?. Is it correct just to download the installer or use homebrew instead to install python?.

OS X Mavericks actually ships with Python in /usr/bin/python:

|ruby-2.1.1| mymachine in ~
○ → /usr/bin/python --version
Python 2.7.5

You don't need to install Python at all to get started developing with Python on OS X. That version is sufficiently high enough to be useful for Python 2.x development work and not totally suck (i.e. it's not Python 2.4).

My personal preference to is to use Homebrew for installing command line tools. You get a nice, neat, compartmentalized installation that's fairly straightforward to wipe away if it bothers you. So, I would use Homebrew to install a newer version of Python if I wanted it.

To install Python with Homebrew first install Homebrew:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

And then install Python 2.7.8 with:

brew install python

As you can see, this is the 2.7.8 version of Python:

|ruby-2.1.1| mymachine in ~
○ → brew info python
python: stable 2.7.8 (bottled), HEAD
http://www.python.org
/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.6_1 (4976 files, 81M) *
  Poured from bottle
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/python.rb

If you'd also like Python 3.4.1 you can use:

brew install python3

Which you can see gives you:

|ruby-2.1.1| mymachine in ~
○ → brew info python3
python3: stable 3.4.1 (bottled), HEAD
https://www.python.org/
Not installed
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/python3.rb

Homebrew will install any dependencies you need to run Python in either case.

Download the source code like Python-3.4.1.tgz or whatever version you are looking for from Python official website and extract it:

tar -xzf Python-3.4.1.tgz
cd Python-3.4.1
./configure
make
make test
sudo make install

Installing from source code can be done in other platforms like Linux.

Verify the installation by:

bash-4.3$ python
Python 3.4.1 (default, Aug  4 2016, 13:53:56)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 7.3.0 (clang-703.0.31)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.


How does iOS and OS X detect when a Wi-Fi network is a personal hotspot? When there is a Personal Hotspot network available, it displays a chain link icon instead of the usual lock icon in the list of available networks on iOS and OS X.

My question is, how does OS X distinguish these networks? Is it specified in 802.11 how hotspots broadcast their SSID's differently?

I think this question should be posted in Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange site. You're asking for the implementation details about a black box...

In fact I did dig around a little on /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/AirPort.menu and /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreWLAN.framework/

There is a private method of CWNetwork called isPersonalHotspot, kind of:

char -[CWNetwork(Private) isPersonalHotspot](void * self, void * _cmd) {
    eax = [*(self + 0x4) objectForKey:@"IOS_IE"];
    eax = LOBYTE(eax != 0x0 ? 0x1 : 0x0) & 0xff;
    return eax;
}

It seems just checking some identifiers. I think SFRemoteHotspotDevice and WiFiXPCEventProtocol may have more low level details but I didn't check.

BTW, There is also a property to identify whether is CarPlay network

@interface CWNetwork : NSObject <NSCopying, NSSecureCoding>
... //redacted
@property(readonly) BOOL isPersonalHotspot;
@property(readonly) BOOL isCarPlayNetwork;
... //redacted

Apple controls the Hardware, the Drivers and the Operating System, I guess they can easily add extra metadata when broadcasting the WiFi signal so your Mac knows to whether adding the chain icon or not.

If anyone figure out exactly how Apple did the trick, please let me know. :)

Also, hotpots on iOS are identified as 172.20.10.x, as well.


Unable to remove a container disk on MacBook Pro SSD I am trying to remove a container disk and exFat partition on the GUID partitioned SSD on my Macbook Pro 13" 128GB early 2015. It got created by BOOT CAMP ASSISTANT. It is taking up 29GB of space on my disk. There is also a small exFat partition that I cannot remove. In disk utility the option to delete this partition and container disk is greyed out. When I press partition when I have selected my SSD and click on the 29GB container disk, the - button is greyed out, and in the bottom right corner it says "You cannot remove this volume because the previous volume cannot be resized". I have tried doing this when booted into Recovery mode 'Command + R'

Here are some screenshots:

EDIT: I formatted 'container disk 1' as 'untitled' and as exFAT out of curiosity and it deleted the container disk, but it added another volume called 'untitled' under the 'APPLE SSD SM0128...' which cannot be deleted (greyed out remove button).

In your screen shot I can see 2 additional containers just bellow disk1, these must be removed first. Start by removing the containers going clockwise from macOS. You will then be able to remove disk1 last.


Can thief use locked MacBook Air? My MacBook air was stolen from my apartment a few days ago. I got the address on the find my iPhone app, but then it said that the MacBook was locked, requiring a code. I didn't lock my MacBook from find my iPhone, and when I spoke to the Apple store they told me that it was probably locked because of the thief entering the wrong password too many times.

My question is: can the thief still use my MacBook? Can they delete the HD when it's locked and when I have a password on it?

If you set a firmware password (which isn't set by default) and you used FileVault to encrypt the disk (also not the default), then the thief probably can't do anything with it. Without the firmware password, they can boot from USB, repartition the drive and do a new clean OS X install. Without FileVault they can remove the drive and mount it elsewhere, and then access your data. I'm afraid that just locking the screen is not enough.

You can get law enforcement. But it's a bit tricky for them. If the new owner has the MacBook but was not actually caught stealing it from you. Then they would not be considered a thief. Common examples of what thiefs usually do is sell the device immediately on the streets for a low cost.

This leaving the new owner with a stolen device they purchased but did not steal. The crime has to be caught in action.


How can I sync notes in iPhone with macbook pro and vice versa by using either bluetooth or using USB cable? I have iPhone 4 and macbook pro. I have some notes in my iPhone. I would like to sync those notes to my iPhone.  How can I sync notes in iPhone with macbook pro and vice versa by using either bluetooth or using USB cable which is used to charge iPhone and with out using any external account like iCloud or gmail?

Research that I have done:
I have Googled with the phrase "how to sync iphone notes with mac" and I got below result.
 along with other results.

iOS: Syncing Notes

How ever all those articles discuss the method with iCloud account. But I don't have iCloud account.

The below article seems to be very close to my question. How ever it didn't provide any solution to my problem.

Notes was removed in Mountain Lion

I have searched in apple.SE site also. How ever I found some results. But all of them are suggesting with some of the other email account.

How ever I would like to sync the notes with out Internet by using either USB cable which I used to charge iPhone or bluetooth.

You can use the following third party software:

iExplorer - http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/31722/iexplorer
iMazing - http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/27830/imazing
PhoneView - http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/25347/phoneview

I believe you will have to copy/paste the information manually.

I believe you can do it with iTunes. If not try iTools or iFunbox, both softwares have powerful tools.


WebP support on macOS — is it indended to actually work? macOS seems to recognize WebP images as such, and seems like it actually tries to display previews of them, but always fails.

They are also associated with Preview application, just like other image formats, but Preview also chokes on it (without any error messages, it just silently fails to open a window).

Does it mean that it's intended to actually work but it fails just on my system for some reason?

In my case, the WebP images are lossless and not animated.

Now it's possible with this Quick Look plugin:

WebPQuickLook

Would like to add a further update. 9/21/2020.
While the GitHub repo for webp does work in preview, there is still no support for animated webp in preview. I have found that Pixea from the apple store does a fairly decent version of converting and viewing webp, but it's neither fast, nor that functional.
Tempted to write an extension for Chrome that will show a local directory image browser with thumbnail images, since loading a local webp images and animated images in Chrome is instant. Unless someone knows of one already.


How long should my MacBook Pro battery last? I have brand new Macbook Pro (15", i5 2.4GHz, 4Gb RAM) purchased at the end of May 2010 and Apple advertises up to 7 hours of wireless web battery life, however I consistently getting only about 4 hours when I use it normally, i.e. WiFi is turned on and quite a few apps are running, but nothing too resource hungry like games or Photoshop. I tried to figure out if my settings are incorrect or if I'm using some apps that really drain the battery, but can't find any obvious issues, so I wonder what other MBP owners typically get from their batteries? Is 4 hours a typical or I need to replace my battery or do something with my setup? When Apple states up to 8-9 hours, must you turn off all wireless, dim your screen to the minimum and perhaps the only app running be Terminal?

It's likely that you are running something in the background (such as Skype) which is triggering your dedicated graphics card, despite it not actually doing anything graphically intensive. This is a known issue in Apple's graphics card switching technology.

Download and run gfxCardStatus and see if I'm right. If so, close the problematic program or use gfxCardStatus to manually switch to the much lower-powered integrated chip. You should get longer battery life after that; I haven't directly measured it but I know I get at least 30 minutes to an hour of extra life.

And of course it also depends on what you're doing with your computer, what background programs are running, the brightness of your screen, etc.

Also, I got the  new Macbook Pro 13 inch touch bar as a birthday gift and the battery lasts longer the more I use it. I think the older your battery, the longer it will last.


How do I open two/multiple fullscreen views simultaneously in 10.7 Lion? When I open two Lion-supported-fullscreen apps in dual-monitor mode, one monitor shows one app while the other monitor shows a "fabric" pattern/texture. The other fullscreen app is available by swipe or Mission Control as another view, but I'd prefer to have the two fullscreen apps up simultaneously (and no cloth pattern texture on the other screen). Is there a way to customize my setup natively or with apps to accommodate?

Moreover, is there a way to disable the second screen's "fabric" pattern/texture altogether (showing the desktop or other apps in that view)?

Unfortunately, you can't. I am hoping Apple will fix this as soon as possible as well.

There's a trick where you can put some app in the fabric space, as documented in OS X hints.

  However, if you utilize the full-screen swipe gesture to move to a separate full screen and pause/stop in the middle with multiple Spaces in view and invoke another application (i.e. via Spotlight), the spawned application can reside in the 'fabric space' or anywhere else. It basically remains attached to that space.

you have to go to system preferences, display settings with both monitors attached.  And you can choose one screen to be a primary with the menu top and bottom, (if that's where you have them).  the second screen, will be secondary, and you can choose a unique photo background for it, as it will have its own preferences open on that screen. if you have a laptop screen open, it will use that as the 2nd monitor as well, if you have one main monitor.  and in expose, you should have the same background picture for each virtual desktop.


Why does my battery drop with 1% within a minute after removing the charger? I just got a new iPhone 5S a week ago. Works perfectly aside from the fact that the battery tends to act weirdly. As mentioned in the title, when I remove the charger the battery percentage drop by a single percent, sometimes instantly and sometimes after a few minutes.

However, if I reboot my phone the percentage goes back up to 100% and stays there for a more normal amount of time. Not the biggest issue in the world, but still, annoying :)

Any suggestions?

Battery level indications are notoriously unreliable in most devices. That's why it's known as the indicator rather than the gauge, as the latter implies accuracy (same goes for car fuel tanks, which is why when there is less than approximately 30 miles of fuel left, my car then stops telling me the level and just says "Refuel!!"). It's very common to note unusual behaviour such as you describe, and other similar behaviour like the first 50% being used slower than the last 50%, etc.

In an attempt to improve the situation, Apple did something a little different with how the battery indicator value is commonly generated in iOS. But before I mention that, it's worth showing how a lot of other manufacturers do it (and indeed how Apple does it on OSX hardware still).

The normal method is to show 100% full when the battery stops charging. This is a physical measure, rather than a logical one, and relies on taking voltage/ampage readings and whether they have stopped increasing or reached expected levels, etc. On a Macbook, the behaviour shown by @Robuust' answer is because of this method of charging; because it's not good to keep topping up the battery to absolutely full when it has only lost a percent or so - it's better to use a bit more before starting to charge again. OSX won't bother charging a battery that was at 100% until it has dropped sufficiently to make charging it back up worth it without causing potential battery health issues. As such, if you unplug to walk to another room and drop from 100% to 98%, it will determine that it's not worth the potential shortening of a batteries long term life just to give you a 2% recharge. It will wait until a lower indication is reached, say 94%, and then when it drops below this threshold start to charge again.

This causes (or used to cause) endless user confusion; Why doesn't my battery get to 100%?!?! My battery is faulty...

So in iOS, they switched to a different method of reporting battery life. The genuine 100% charge state is still monitored in the same way, but the way it is reported to the user is different. The battery will show as full when in reality it's only, for example, say 95% full (I don't know the exacts, which probably changes model to model anyway). At this point you can safely unplug and use the device (there is no need to charge a modern battery all the way to prevent memory damage) although it might not be fully charged regardless of what it says. If you leave it plugged in however, it continues to charge. Physically as the battery reaches 100% charge, logically that is essentially going over the 100% level shown to the user, say to 105% (although this isn't shown, clearly). At the point that it reaches this genuine full mark it then runs on battery until the value is lowered back to 95% physical/100% logical. Then it charges up. It will use the top 5% or so of genuine physical battery charge to constantly run the battery through a small charge/discharge cycle, and display 100% at all times to the user, regardless of where it is in the cycle.

Actual physical battery capacity:

[0--------------------------------------------------100]

Logical user reported charge:

[--0---------------------------------------------100---]

Logical user accessible charge:

[--0------------------------------------------------105]

Keeping a battery active in this way is better for its health than charging it to full and keeping in charged to full. Batteries are designed to be used, which is why laptop batteries on machines that commonly stay plugged in often fail with relatively little use - you should use the battery regularly to keep it healthy.

A net result of the above operation is that sometimes when your phone is showing 100% it will drop to 99 relatively quickly, because it was at that point in the cycle where it had been running on battery and was about to start charging again anyway. Other times when you unplug, it has just finished charging to its genuine full charge, and therefore you get all the extra time it takes to discharge down from its logical 105% down to 99%, so it will show at 100% for ages before starting to drop more consistently.

The same happens at the bottom of the battery too, when it hits 0%, it doesn't just run out of juice and die, it knows it has enough power reserved to perform a clean shutdown, and hold enough stuff like the date/time etc., or to be able to flash you an I need power! icon when you try to turn it back on.

Finally, as to why you can seemingly recover charge after a reboot, it seems reasonable to assume that this is just an artifact of the process used to provide the user with a logical battery indication, rather than the real thing.  My physics isn't brilliant, but I believe that it's harder to record what the static voltage of a battery is when it's being used (as it's constantly draining), and during bootup it's probably actually using more power than when it's just sitting in your pocket and so on.  Tie in this with some algorithm that is adjusting for the general age and health of the battery anyway (If a battery has lost 20% of its capacity over the course of a couple of years, it won't simply get to 80% full and go no further, its physically capacity is reduced and the logical capacity needs adjusting to give the same 0-100% range, even if that range is now smaller) and it's easy to see there's plenty of room for the values to hop about a bit.

The key takeaway is that the numbers reported to the user are nothing more than a software adjusted "approximation" of available charge, and can vary on current usage etc.  It's not a defect :)

If your iPhone does not charge to 100%, it means that the plug you are using to charge your phone is fake (it is not originally from the Apple store). Or you may have got it originally from the Apple store but it might be a little broken. My iPhone 4 was charging only to 97% a week ago, but 2 days later it charge up to 95%. What it meant was that my white plug was fake so I got an external charger from eBay and every time before I go to sleep I charge my phone and after in the morning when it is not 100%, I charge my iPhone 4 with my external charger then it charges to 100%. I did this for 3 days and now my iPhone has been charging to 100%. Another solution is that you buy a new charger from the apple store. By the way it does have the iOS 7.1.2 update (the latest one to date)


Is it better to upgrade to Mavericks or to perform a clean install? I got my MBP yesterday. It's almost new. Before using it, I want to know should I normal upgrade to Mavericks or perform a clean install? Which one will be better for me? I have several applications installed on it. Should it be removed after upgrading?

First, take a backup (using Time Machine or a cloning tool like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! or Clonezilla) so that you can revert to it if at all something goes wrong and you're unable to salvage it through simple troubleshooting and fixes.

After that, just do a straight upgrade to OS X Mavericks. If you have several apps already installed, then an upgrade will save you a lot of time. The upgrade to OS X Mavericks will retain all your applications, settings and files (they won't be removed).

Also, a clean install is recommended only if you're having some issues in the system that you're unable to trace and resolve through other means. For every other case, a straight upgrade is reliable and quicker.

On the other hand, if you choose a clean install, then you would have to (follow this tedious and time consuming process):

Backup your system (using Time Machine or a cloning tool like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! or Clonezilla)
Install OS X Mavericks
Configure all the settings for OS X Mavericks as if you were setting up a new system
Install all your applications afresh
Configure each of your applications according to how you'd like
Copy all your files and folders from the backup

For patch level updates, I always just do the normal update process.  For major releases like Lion => Mavericks, I always do a clean install.  It's easy to just restore from your Time Machine drive.  Even if you have tons of data, just let the restore run over night and when you wake up you have a fresh machine with all of your stuff where you left it.


Weird page flicker on macOS 10.15.2 with chrome 79 (latest) I'm getting weird screen flickering on apple.com specifically. I can't seem to find another website where chrome has this issue, it's quite weird!

I've tried running incognito so my extensions would not interfere, but it doesn't change anything. Running on an external monitor or the retina display does not change anything, happens either way. I have tested Safari and FireFox so this appears to be Chrome specific.

I've recorded my screen, please see my video, it shows what happens. Mainly around the top area near the bookmark icon and navbar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKqssSvJwqs

Chrome version : Version 79.0.3945.130 (Official Build) (64-bit)

macOS version: 10.15.2

I understand this is a little strange. I even asked a friend with the exact same macOS version and Chrome version, he does not have that issue at all so it might not even be a bug in either.

What might cause this and how would I fix it?

So after encountering a few other websites that caused me some trouble

Like any of the following (and apple.com)

https://obsidian.md/
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/ipad/
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-determine-graphics-card-windows-10

I was able to fix it by enabling hardware Acceleration

Go to Chrome > Settings > Advanced > Enable Hardware Acceleration

I opened a chromium bug report https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1094727

Rest NVRAM/PRAM

PRAM or Parameter Random Accessory Memory that stores system settings on your Mac devices such as settings on display, the volume of your speakers, time zone settings and many others. So, I would suggest you reset NVRAM.

Shut down your Mac device.
Press the Power Button.
Before the grey screen appears, press the Command, Option, P, and R keys all at the same time.
Continues pressing the keys Mac restarts and a startup sound can be heard for the second time.
Finally, release the Four (4) keys:  Command, Option, P, and R keys

If this doesn't help then at last try to:

Reset the SMC on Mac

First, shut down your Mac and Press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the built-in keyboard, then press the power button at the same time. Hold these keys and the power button for 10 seconds. Release all keys. And, Press the power button again to turn on your Mac. More detail on Apple Support page

Start your Mac up in safe mode.

You sometimes can use safe mode to identify your issue. Here is how:

Shut down your Mac

Start your Mac and immediately, press and hold the Shift key. Apple logo will appear (do not release the Shift key yet)

Then you will see the login screen (now you may release the Shift key) and login your Mac. Now you are in safe mode. Does flickering still happen?

If flickering does not happen, restart your Mac regularly (without pressing any keys). After regularly starting your Mac, does flickering come back? If not, that means that the safe mode fixed it.


Recording with Audacity using Soundflower causes echo/reverb I'm using Audacity and Soundflower to record sound internally on my MacBook Pro. For example I can play a YouTube video and listen to it with head phones, while recording the sound output. All that works fine, the problem comes when I click record in Audacity. It records the sound, but it is adding an echo or reverb which distorts the sound, especially the bass drum in techno music. How do I turn this echo/reverb off?

Btw, if I listen to the music with my headphones, through Audacity, but I don't click record, the sound is great. The problem comes when I begin to record.

I had same problem just fixed it, so assuming you are trying to record audio from Sound Card. The echo reverb is cause by the microphone in your comp, go SoundFlowerBed-->Audio Setup--> Then right click SoundflowerChannel(The one you've setup)---> Set as "Use device for sound input". And that way the microphone its trying to listen to doesnt exist in that channel.

Had the same problem found out if I went to the audio source on Audacity (between the mic and speaker symbol) and changed it from SoundFlower to Built in Output the echo reverb is gone.


YouTube at double speed on mobile How do I listen to YouTube videos at double-speed?

On the desktop I'm able to change the playback speed to 1.5x or 2x. With podcasts, I'm able to listen to them on my iPhone at 1.5x or 2x speed. Shouldn't  I be able to watch YouTube videos at double speed on the iOS app?

Updated answer for those who still prefer to watch in Safari

In the iOS Shortcuts app you can find a shortcut that will change the speed of any video it finds on the web page you're on when you run it. You run it from the share sheet in Safari.

Activate it in the Shortcuts app in Gallery → Javascript Shortcuts → Change video speed.

Visit a Youtube video in Safari and use the share sheet to run the newly added shortcut. It will ask you what speed to play the video at.

Original answer

On the video's mobile Youtube page, tap the menu button at the top left (or right). Scroll to the bottom and switch
to Desktop view.*

Change the speed controls just like you would on your computer.
Play the video by tapping it and it will use the new speed settings.

*If you're in YouTube desktop mode but still don't see the gear icon then tap Safari's action/share button and request desktop version from there as well. The request desktop icon looks like a monitor/iMac.

(I recently learned that you can also tap and hold Safari's refresh button to request the desktop version of a page)

If you lock the screen Safari will pause playback, but it can be resumed either from the lock screen or your headset to allow audio only.

Just download SpeedTube on the app store