Combine Two Folders with Smart Folder Okay, so one thing I've wanted to be able to do for ages now in OS X is to create or view a combined Applications folder that displays the contents of both /Applications and ~/Applications (assume it exists).

Now, I know LaunchPad can do this, but I'd still like to be able to do this in a regular Finder window, for example using a Smart Folder.

Is this possible, and if so, what are the steps for doing this (either in the Finder itself, or via command line)?

I've experimented for searches of my entire computer for all Applications, however this only returns the application bundles themselves, ignoring any enclosing folders. Really I just want top level items for each of the applications folders; for example, I'd like to see the /Applications/Utilities folder, not its contents.

check the code below and I will explain
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>CompatibleVersion</key>
    <integer>1</integer>
    <key>RawQuery</key>
    <string>(((kMDItemKind == "Application"cd &amp;&amp; ! ( ((kMDItemDisplayName == "*aam*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*aam*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*aas*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*aas*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*lic*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*lic*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*uninstall*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*uninstall*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*setup*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*setup*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*install*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*install*"cd)) ))))</string>
    <key>RawQueryDict</key>
    <dict>
        <key>FinderFilesOnly</key>
        <false/>
        <key>RawQuery</key>
        <string>(((kMDItemKind == "Application"cd &amp;&amp; ! ( ((kMDItemDisplayName == "*aam*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*aam*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*aas*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*aas*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*lic*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*lic*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*uninstall*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*uninstall*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*setup*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*setup*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*install*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*install*"cd)) ))))</string>
        <key>SearchScopes</key>
        <array>
            <string>/System/Applications</string>
            <string>/Applications</string>
            <string>/Users/USERNAME/Applications</string>
        </array>
        <key>UserFilesOnly</key>
        <false/>
    </dict>
    <key>SearchCriteria</key>
    <dict>
        <key>FXCriteriaSlices</key>
        <array>
            <dict>
                <key>criteria</key>
                <array>
                    <string>com_apple_RawQueryAttribute</string>
                    <integer>104</integer>
                </array>
                <key>displayValues</key>
                <array>
                    <string>Raw query</string>
                    <string>(kMDItemKind == "Application"cd &amp;&amp; ! ( ((kMDItemDisplayName == "*aam*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*aam*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*aas*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*aas*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*lic*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*lic*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*uninstall*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*uninstall*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*setup*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*setup*"cd) || (kMDItemDisplayName == "*install*"cd || kMDItemAlternateNames == "*install*"cd)) ))</string>
                </array>
                <key>rowType</key>
                <integer>0</integer>
                <key>subrows</key>
                <array/>
            </dict>
        </array>
        <key>FXScopeArrayOfPaths</key>
        <array>
            <string>/System/Applications</string>
            <string>/Applications</string>
            <string>/Users/USERNAME/Applications</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

If you see the key SearchScopes then there you can add what paths to include.
So simple as that - then it can be done. To learn this I used HoudaSpot that saved it for me so I could learn how to set it up. So basically just open a pre-saved .savedSearch file and edit the contents with SearchScope key.


Swap iCloud account registered to an iPhone? I bought my son a new iPhone at Christmas so I now have his old one but it has his iCloud account on it.

If I delete the account on this phone can I make a new one for me and will his account still be active and ok on his new device?

Why not set up the new phone first. Once that's done and your son has verified all the games and apps and settings are correct. Erase all content and settings on the old phone (under general in the settings app - go to the bottom where it says reset).

That way, you can set up the "old" phone with only the accounts you care about.

Before you do anything to the old phone, have him set up his new one and log into his iCloud account on it.

To answer your question, yes. When you remove his iCloud account from his old iPhone, everything will still be on his new phone. When you remove his iCloud account, you are not "deleting" the account itself, just the copies of his content (apps, games, music, movies, books, and so on) stored locally on his old iPhone.

If you have a Mac, I would suggest that you have him log into his account, plug his old iPhone into the Mac and make a backup of it in iTunes, then plug in his new iPhone and restore the backup of his old phone to his new phone.

Most apps these days have accounts or syncs of their own, so you shouldn't have to worry about them. Still, if what I suggested in the last paragraph doesn't work, just have him give his old phone one final sweep to make sure he didn't forget anything important.

Once he has everything he wants off of his old phone, just go to Settings >> General >> Reset >> Erase All Content and Settings, then hit "Erase iPhone" when prompted. Do that, and all of his data will be removed from his old phone and you can do with it what you will, without his new phone being affected at all.

More information on factory resetting an iPhone and also on backing up and restoring can be found here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-factory-reset-an-iphone/


How do I sync Outlook 2011 and Google Calendar? I am using Outlook 2011 for Mac (the office uses Exchange) and have some Google Calendars I am using for home. How do I get 2-way sync working between Outlook and Google? I could do this with iCal but its Exchange support is sorely lacking and therefore not an option.

I don't believe this feature is available yet (ever?).  You may be able to get this going by having Outlook sync with your iCal, and have iCal sync with your Google cal.  Even that though, (Outlook sync with iCal) isn't available yet, and probably the biggest gripe Mac users have with Outlook ATM.  I wouldn't be too surprised if there's a 3rd party plugin or piece of software that will do that for you by now.  Honestly though, I think you're out of luck.

one way sync is possible, but I didn’t hear for 2 way sync between Outlook 2011 & Google Calendars. Recently I had posted a blog for synchronization of Mac Outlook calendars to Google calendar, you can try this method once. And as I am hoping somehow it will assist you.

Source Blog Link: http://mailtroubleshooter.tumblr.com/post/109556653818/how-to-sync-mac-outlook-calendar-with-google


What is the "maybe" caller id suggestion in the call log based on? I got a call from a phone number that is not stored in my address book, and in the call log, under the number, a name was suggested: "Maybe: X" (where X is the guessed name).

Where is this guess coming from?

iOS scans your email for contact info.  If the phone number is not in your Address Book, for matches, it looks to your email to see if anyone with this number sent you email.  If it finds the phone number associated with a contact from your email, it will show you "Maybe:" with its guess of the person's name.

You can disable this feature, if you want, by:

Go to Settings --> Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Under Contacts, toggle the switch labeled Contacts Found in Mail to the OFF position

Settings
General
Messaging
Turn on group messages.

Then :

Settings
General
Reset
Reset network settings

then delete the thread that was causing issues and restart conversation


Google Chrome tabs titles are not completely visible (cut) Starting from yesterday I've a weird problem with Google Chrome on my iMac 5k with Yosemite (updated).

As you can see, the text is shifted down some pixel and the lower part is not visible.

Chrome is updated to the latest stable 43.0.2357.134 (64-bit), I have already tried to restart Chrome and the iMac itself.

I have even Chrome Canary and on that version everything works correctly.
On my MacBook Pro with Chrome stable everything works.

How can I fix it?

The problem is related to the San Francisco font on Yosemite, remove it and it get fixed


Scan lot of documents and output them in PDF I have a lot of documents I would like to scan to produce PDFs. Some of them are single-page, others are multi-pages.

As of today, I'm using Image Capture for this purpose but I don't find it to be handy to treat a lot of documents.
The main issue is that I will for example scan 10 pages, being one 3 pages document, one 4 pages document and three 1 page document.
I currently have to scan all pages which will end up as images or pdf on my desktop and I then have to combine them to produce multi-pages PDFs.

Is there a tool which will help me achieve all of this more quickly and easily?

Two answers:

1) By far the easiest/best document scanner for Macs is the Fujitsu ScanSnap series. You just insert a stack of papers, press a button, and out pops a PDF. It scans both sides of each page in a single pass.

2) To convert a scanned PDF to something searchable, by far the most reliable OCR program available (for any platform, Mac included) is the AABYY FineReader package. It is miles ahead of any other package- especially Adobe Acrobat's built-in OCR which is barely usable. This comes bundled, at no additional cost, with the ScanSnap, or you can buy it separately.

I've used one of these for several years... have scanned all of my old bills, receipts, documents, etc. so whenever I need to find something I just use spotlight and can find it in seconds.

I always use the excellent PDFsam software for these kind of tasks: if you want an Open Source solution, I personally think that it's the best you can get for such tasks.

Look for the Alternate Mix feature, which you can use to "emulate" front-back scanning with a single-side home scanner such as the one I have: you can also read this post for a guide explaining how to use it.


Apple pulled Mojave 10.14.0 -- Where can i get it? -- 10.14.4,,,10.14.6 etc., are still available from Apple I cannot upgrade to MOJAVE.  After spending a lot of time searching through Apple's download site, I contacted Apple support and they told me that I cannot download Mojave 10.14.0.  That version has been removed from their download files.  Other later versions are still available.  However, I CANNOT INSTALL 10.14.4 OR 10.14.6 without first installing 10.14.0.  Are there any non Apple sites that make that 10.14.0 download available?????

If you can't install macOS Mojave, your Mac may not be compatible.

First check the requirements on Apple Technical Specifications. Then, you can manually download the installer through Apple Official Support or the Mac App Store.

If you still can't update to macOS Mojave, you may download the installer from an external source, like I did when I needed to update from Snow Leopard (10.8) to El Capitan (10.11).


Create a Terminal command to open file with Chrome I want to create command in terminal that would allow me to use

chrome index.html

and have the the given file open in Google Chrome.

How can I get this working?

You can use the open command with the -a flag to open a file or location in Chrome:

open -a "Google Chrome" index.html

This also works with URLs, i.e. open -a "Google Chrome" http://www.apple.com.

From anywhere
start chrome path/file.html

just type the file name with extension if you are at that folder where file reside and your default browser should be chrome.
index.html

if chrome is not default Browser for that file
start chrome index.html


How do I subscribe to an RSS feed in Mavericks? I would like to subscribe to some RSS feeds. I originally had them in Mail, which worked just fine. But after upgrading to Mavericks, the RSS feeds disappeared, and I get this message when I click on an RSS feed link:

How do I subscribe to an RSS feed, if this won't work?

An option you might look into is Feedly. They have a Safari plugin (and probably other browsers) and work well enough.

Tbodt I would recommend using Pronto Push app exclusively for OSX Mavericks!

Get Desktop Notifications From any RSS Feed in Mavericks Using Pronto Push

  http://www.mactrast.com/2013/10/get-desktop-notifications-rss-feed-mavericks-using-pronto-push/


Updating iOS, Storage Mystery Math I'd like to update my iPhone Operating System.  I plug the iPhone into my desktop computer, sync up to itunes, then press the Update button, right below where it says

  A newer version of the iPhone software is available... To update your
  iPhone with the latest software, click Update.

I then get a popup that says

  Updating to iOS 10.3.2 requires at least 770 MB of free space on your iPhone.
  Please change your media sync options to make more storage available.

Huh?  I'm looking at the data storage summary at the bottom of itunes.  It says quite clearly that I have 2.48 GB free in the little color bar describing the iPhone.  I need 770 MB, and I have 2.48 GB available, then why, for goodness sake, am I getting that mystery message?

When I learned math, I thought that 770 MB was a heck of a lot smaller than 2.48 GB.

Note: There is some other odd stuff going on with this phone's memory display.  I've deleted all the photos from the photo gallery on the phone, yet the data summary bar shows 1.49 GB, 1760 photos.  It should show near zero memory / zero images.

Note:  Its possible that Dropbox is messing things up.  I would have thought that the Dropbox memory usage would be accurately reported out on the data usage summary in iTunes. My Dropbox storage capacity is 10GB, of which I typically use 8GB.  (In fact is there a DropboxIgnore for the iPhone?  I really only need access to photo backup and my password vault from the iPhone...)  On the phone data summary color bar, there is an Other category, sized at 4.84 GB, which I assume to be Dropbox.

I've clicked Synch, Done and rebooted the entire computer numerous times trying to get stuff to update.  There are minor variations to the storage usage display, but the photo segment doesn't seem to update, nor will the OS update, and utilize that empty space.

Anybody know what's going on here?

ref: windows 10, itunes v12.6.1.25, iphone 6 with 16GB memory, sync via USB cable.

Try restarting the iPhone, worked for me, maybe some temporary files get deleted on reboot.


safari cannot play audio in wikipedia The safari in my iPhone 6 can not play audio file in Wikipedia,  for example, the following picture shows a audio file one a Wikipedia page but I cannot play it. what's wrong with it and how to fix it?

Actually, Wikipedia provided solutions for this, Wikipedia:Media help (audio and video)

  It is highly recommended that you use a program which is capable of playing both Vorbis audio and Theora video since these two different media formats are often in the same digital container format, Ogg.

Safari does not natively support OGG audio files, you need install an OGG plugin. Or just install another web browser on your phone which supports OGG files.


Replacing OS X with Windows/Linux on aging Mac I have an old 2008 13" Macbook4,1 model (not pro) running Snow Leopard with 4GB of RAM and 160GB of HDD. It is adequate for my needs at the moment but the OS is no longer being supported by Apple (NTP bug for example).

Thinking about the future, I am considering wiping OS X and dedicating the entire disk to Windows 7 or Linux. I've found here that Windows 7 runs well on it and Linux seemed to be ok on it when I used a recent LiveCD to test it.

So, my question is, are there any issues with removing OS X from the system completely? Will it break anything? Is it needed for anything?

EDIT: Upgrade to Lion is out too, according to wikipedia support just run out - Oct '14.

EDIT2: Apparently OS X is needed for firmware updates. But since this is a 2008 MacBook, it is extremely unlikely they will release new firmware for it.

Do you have the original install disks for Mac OS X? If so, there shouldn't be any issues with wiping the Mac partition completely off the hdd.

However, if you don't have those disks, I would strongly recommend keeping the Mac OS X install and creating a new partition (shrinking the Mac partition) for the new OS. Mainly because if something goes wrong (or if you don't like either alternative) it's much easier to recover a MacBook using the Mac OS. I think you can get away with 5-10GB for the Snow Leopard partition.

If you have the original install disks, you shouldn't have an issue with restoring it.

Linux will take some tinkering to get working properly. I had a particularly rough time getting wifi to work in Ubuntu 12.blah on an older MacBook Pro. Plus side: With a laptop that old, there should be a decent amount of documentation for making your hardware work with Linux. I'd stick with Ubuntu if you like fancy, or Linux Mint if you like simple. Windows 7 (if installed through Bootcamp) works pretty well without much hassle.

Try change HDD to SSD and install OS X 10.9-10.10, would be ok and more or less compatible with current features.
Spouse's MacBook 2009 (not Pro) works fine with 10.11 and handmade fusion drive (SSD 256 + HDD 750).


iCloud Synching Scrambles Safari Bookmarks I have a MacBook Pro and a MacBook Air, as well as an iPhone SE. I use iCloud to synch Safari bookmarks. Both computers run macOS 10.12.6 and Safari 11.0.3; the iPhone runs iOS 11.2.6. All this software is up-to-date. Synching has worked quickly and correctly for many months. Synching contacts and Keychain and Find My Mac continue to work correctly.

Yesterday, bookmark order and organization became random.

I tried to flush the Bookmarks data in iCloud by manually erasing the bookmarks on both computers, until both Bookmark lists were empty, then re-adding them (with a Bookmarks.plist file from my Time Machine backup) to one computer. They display correctly on whichever Mac I use...but when the second computer (previously empty)   synchs to iCloud, Bookmark order on both computers is quickly randomized.

Multiple times, I've enabled and dis-enabled Safari in iCloud Preferences on both Macs, and enabled and dis-enabled iCloud itself on all three machines. I've reloaded new macOSs (from Recovery) on both Macs. I've hard-restarted the iPhone. The Bookmarks continue to scramble when a second computer is connected.

There are several hundred bookmarks, and many folders, and I don't relish sorting them manually. Is there any other tactic I might employ to maintain the sort order which appears when the archived Bookmarks.plist is first opened?

This sounds like a Safari issue, not an iCloud or Bookmarks issue, to verify that, lets reset Safari back to scratch. This wont delete any bookmarks. You may want to clear the history too.

How to fully reset Safari on your Mac

  Remove Safari’s configuration folder:

  Open the Go menu in the OS X Finder
  Hold the Option key and choose the Library option that appears
  Move the “Safari” folder in here to your desktop

  Remove Safari’s window state:

  Open the Library > Saved Application State folder
  Locate the “com.apple.Safari.savedState” folder
  Move this folder to the trash

  Remove Safari’s application caches:

  Open the Library > Caches folder
  Locate all folders that begin with “com.apple.Safari”
  Move these folders to the trash.

  Remove Safari Cookies configurations:

  Open the Library > Cookies folder
  Remove the file called “com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing.binarycookies”

  Remove Safari’s preferences:

  Open the Library > Preferences folder
  Remove any file that begins with “com.apple.Safari”

  Remove user plug-ins:

  Go to the Library > Internet Plug-Ins folder
  Move all items from this folder to your Desktop (or elsewhere)

  Remove global plug-ins:

  Go to the Macintosh HD > Library > Internet plug-ins folder
  Move all items out of this folder except the following plug-ins:

  *

Default Browser.plugin
iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
Quartz Composer.webplugin
QuickTime Plugin.plugin

  *

That may help with the issue you are having via Safari and not your bookmarks.

Give iCloudKit time. It’s Apple’s issue.


How to tell if I'm using HFS+ or APFS? Using diskutil, or other command line tools, how can I determine which filesystem I'm using?

# sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion:    10.8.5
BuildVersion:    12F45

The easiest way is using the diskutil command line as follows:

diskutil info /

You will see a report which will include something like this for an APFS formatted storage:

Volume Name:              Macintosh HD
Mounted:                  Yes
Mount Point:              /
Partition Type:           41504752-0000-11AA-AA23-01306543EFEA
File System Personality:  APFS
Type (Bundle):            apfs
Name (User Visible):      APFS
Owners:                   Enabled

See under Type to determine what kind of file system is on your root volume.

This will be displayed on an HFS formatted storage:

Volume Name:              Macintosh HD
Mounted:                  Yes
Mount Point:              /
Partition Type:           Apple_HFS
File System Personality:  Journaled HFS+
Type (Bundle):            hfs
Name (User Visible):      Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Journal:                  Journal size 155648 KB at offset 0x3a38000
Owners:                   Enabled

If you want to automate this or use the results in a script, you can use following one-liner:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :FilesystemType" /dev/stdin <<< $(diskutil info -plist /)

Which will produce output:

apfs

or

hfs

or just launch disk utility - it will list the "Type" also


Can an iPhone stream to multiple Airplay devices at the same time? I really love AirPlay so I thought about buying a second AirPort Express for another amplifier in the apartment. But will my iPhone5/iPad2 be able to stream to both AirPlay devices simultaneously?

No, you want be able to stream music to two airport express units simultaneously from an iOS device such as an iPad or iPhone.

However, you can stream simultaneously from iTunes running on a Mac or PC.

For example, you can't have speakers playing in the kitchen and speakers playing in the dining room at the same time unless they are connected to the same airport express.  If you have them connected to two airport expresses, you can choose kitchen or dining room but not both.

You can play to both if you stream from a Mac or PC using itunes.  However, there are apps that will let you control the Mac or PC from your iOS device but you can't do it natively.

This is a major problem with multiple airplay devices on iOS 7.0.2 we used to be able to stream to multiple devices now I can't:(


How does one enable a terminal color profile for macOS Dark Mode? In macOS dark mode, the font becomes #fff in my terminal,
is there any way to set it to black? or just add another theme for terminal.app in macOS dark mode?

I had the same problem. Let me first clarify what the issue is,
as the first respondent apparently had trouble understanding it.
Like the OP, I have a few Terminal profiles with black or dark
gray text on pastel backgrounds. For some reason, when macOS goes
into dark mode, there is some internal logic that'll invert this
#000000 (or close to it) text foreground into #FFFFFF (or close
to it), while leaving the background color unchanged. This leads
to the effect shown in the OP's screenshot: white text on fairly
bright background, i.e. basically unreadable.
I've found a simple trick to make this go away: Go to the theme
in preferences, to the "text" tab. In the "text" section on the
right, there are three text foreground chits, for "Text", for
"Bold Text", and for the "Selection". You'll note they're showing
bright instead of dark when you're in dark mode. Click on the Text
one (or any of the others that bother you), switch the color picker
that comes up to the "Color Sliders" view, and select the "HSB
Sliders" setting from the dropdown.
What you'll see now is that although the color shown in the main
preferences screen is white (or bright gray), the bottom slider
for "Brightness" is in fact still set to all the way to the left.
Now here's the trick that I found by accident: pull it that brightness
slider just a little bit to the right, and you'll note the text color
immediately jumps back to dark. Now even if you set it back to the
previous setting, it'll now stay dark.
This reproduceably fixed it for me on Catalina on my MacBook Pro 2019.
Hope it helps others!

This answer might be the one you are looking for. I'm able to do this via the Terminal / Preferences setting on my MacBook in dark mode. Not just for the transparent background but different colors.

Transparent Background in Terminal

Update #1

Thank you for following up.

  Blockquote what I want is set a different font color in dark mode and light mode, according to your link, when I set transparency in dark mode, the color still affect in light more – user956609

If I understand correctly, the issue is setting a font color in light mode and different font colors in dark mode. If it's a question of doing so automatically when you switch modes, I'm not aware of a solution.

But manually, you can do so by selecting the text color box.

If I'm still not understanding your question correctly, my apologies. Perhaps someone else can answer.


delete all backups of all machines and reset time machine drive Delete all backups of all machines and reset time machine drive.

As you can see I just want to start over. There are some great discussions on deleting one backup at a time. I have 30 or so. I am changing mac and I would like to just reset time machine.

Please note the drive I have is external. So I can do it through disk utility by directly plugging in but I remember reading somewhere that it's not a good idea.

Just wipe the drive clean using Disk Utility and then have Time Machine start it all over again. I'm not sure what kind of issues you are going to run into because I've done that probably 50 times in my life and never had an issue besides falling asleep while I wait for an entire Time Machine backup to finish.

The easiest way is to use DiskUtil. Use DiskUtil to erase the drive as APFS and then set it up as the Time Machine. Time Machine will convert it to HPFS+
You can't just erase the Time Machine drive as HPFS+, because there are files in the backup with an immutable flag. Erasing it as APFS solves that problem.
I just did it.


Copy to clipboard from Tmux in El Capitan I am quite happy with the Terminal changes in El Capitan (see e.g. this question).

However, i can't figure out how to enable copying to system clipboard from within Tmux. For instance, now that I am able to select text within Tmux properly by mouse, how can i copy selected text to clipboard as well, in addition to Tmux's own buffer?

I have the following in my tmux.conf:

setw -g mode-mouse on
set -g mouse-select-pane on
set -g mouse-resize-pane on
set -g mouse-select-window on

setw -g mode-keys vi
bind-key -t vi-copy 'v' begin-selection
bind-key -t vi-copy 'y' copy-selection

I tried modifying the last line to

bind-key -t vi-copy 'y' copy-selection \; copy-pipe "pbcopy"

but it didn't really work. Would be grateful for suggestions!

Thanks!

Actually, I just find out very simple solution how to enable copying using Cmd+C again.

In default Terminal application go to View->"Allow mouse reporting" and uncheck it. Thats it.

PS: Obviously, the new nice features like dragging split screen in tmux stop working after unchecking the mouse reporting.

i find only one way

open terminal settings/profiles in terminal info change terminal type from xterm-256 to ansi open new terminal window and enjoy :)


Recovering data off of a dead hard drive My hard drive died in my macbook and it no longer will start up. It will not mount in an external enclosure but disk utility is still reading that the hard drive is there, and I tried to repair disk and I am getting this error: (Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.) So my question is how do I backup my files if the hard drive won't mount? The only way that I have been able to see the hard drive is through disk utility. I just want to be clear that I am using mac os x snow leapard.

You could try following this hint from Macworld. It makes use of the Terminal (0$) to execute the UNIX command dd to copy everything bit-by-bit from your harddrive to another location.

1. Determine UNIX id. of dead drive

If you decide to use this method you would first have to determine what the UNIX identifier of the attached disk is. Open up Terminal (Applications --> Utilities) and type the following:

  diskutil list

This will give you a list of all connected drives and their partitions and it should look like shown here.

Probably your boot drive is under /dev/disk0 and the drive in the external enclosure is under /dev/disk1. This could be different, look this up by finding the name of the dead partition in the list. Let's assume for the rest of this answer that the dead drive is under /dev/disk1

Now if you can not find the name of the dead drive in that list, diskutil can not find your drive and the Macworld hint will not work for you. If you see it in the list, move on to the next step.

2. Define destination

This method copies the whole disk byte-by-byte. If it encounters an error it will skip it and write zeros to the destination (read the hint for full details). So, the destination should have enough hard drive space to accomodate the whole hard drive you're recovering. So if you've got a 320GB hard drive, you'll need 320GB of destination space. If you have 320GB to spare on your bootdrive proceed to step 3. Otherwise get another external drive with at least 320GB of space and then proceed to step 3.

3. Copy

The command given in the hint is:

  dd bs=512 if=/dev/rXX# of=/some_dir/foo.dmg conv=noerror,sync

You should replace /dev/rXX# with /dev/rdisk1 (according to our earlier assumption) and /some_dir/foo.dmg differs depending on your destination. If you choose your bootdrive you could change that line to: /Users/**yourusernamehere**/Desktop/recover.dmg

If you choose an external disk you should write /Volumes/**Volumenamehere** instead of /some_dir/foo.dmg

To summarise, your Terminal command would look as follows if you choose your boot drive as destination:

  dd bs=512 if=/dev/rdisk1 of=/Users/yourusernamehere/Desktop/recover.dmg conv=noerror,sync

Or if you choose an external disk:

  dd bs=512 if=/dev/rdisk1 of=/Volumes/Volumenamehere conv=noerror,sync

Good luck

Hard Disk Recovery or Hard Drive Recovery must be done by professional only.There are a variety of issues that can arise that can cause or lead to the malfunction of your hard drive. These problems are such that they can manifest themselves over a period of time or can happen suddenly, rendering your hard drive completely inaccessible.


Sound not working when running OS 10 Yosemite My sound does not work whe I try to turn up the volume it just show this

I tried looking on the forums but they didn't help.

Thank you for spending the time to answer, if you have any questions please comment them down below

By default, without an external monitor and no headphones plugged into the MacBook Pro, the audio should come out of the built-in speakers and you should be able to control the audio with the built-in keyboard volume controls. If you hold down the ⌥ Option key while clicking on the audio icon in your statusbar, you should see this:

If, however, you have an external monitor plugged in via Mini DisplayPort or HDMI, and your monitor supports audio passthrough, then you may be running into a problem of the MacBook Pro seeing that monitor as the primary audio output device.

If your goal is to play audio through the built-in speakers, simply select Internal Speakers in the drop-down shown above and you will be able to control the volume again. It should look like this screenshot:

If your goal is to play audio through the external speakers, and your volume controls do not work, then that means your external speakers (or monitor's speakers) do not support the volume controls in your MacBook Pro, and you will need to control the audio through your speakers or monitor. There should be an audio control on the speakers, or you may have been provided a remote to use with the monitor/speakers.

The solution is not to install hot-off-the-presses new OS versions that aren't ready for showtime.  I have not heeded my own advice.  I encountered the same problem.


How to set reply-to address in Apple Mail I have two accounts set up in Apple Mail. The second account is for backup purposes and because at times the primary account is unavailable. When that happens, I send from the second account but would like the reply-to address to be that of the primary account. Is there a way to set things up this way in Apple Mail?

Simple!

With a message composition window open in Apple Mail make the following menu selection:

View > Reply-To Address Field

That works for a message-by-message basis. If you want to apply all the time there's a hack you can do this via Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Reply-To" = "reply-to@address"; }'

More details can be found here.

Just configure both email accounts with the same email address, but different server details and credentials.

You can set the e-mail address in Mail.app Preferences > Accounts for each account individually.


How do I "pin" Notes in Mountain Lion? The official feature list for Mountain Lion says that individual notes opened into their own windows from the Notes app (1.0) remain "pinned" open "even if you close Notes", but this isn't true. Closing Notes closes any notes that have been opened into their own windows.

How do I get the Notes app's note "pinning" feature to work as described.

The feature description is a bit misleading. It appears that by "close Notes", Apple means "close the main Notes window", not "close the Notes app", which (not surprisingly) leaves other windows open.

In fact, the context menu refers to the main Notes window as Notes:

So what Apple's description basically means:

  Even if you close Notes, the note stays open on your desktop.

= You don't need to use the overview window at all times. You can use Notes.app similar to Stickies.app

By the way, Stickies.app is still available in Mountain Lion and has been upgraded to version 9.0.

To contribute to this discussion, and to the confusion caused by this "feature": yes, indeed, you can close the main notes window, after "pinning" one or more separate notes, but you cannot open it anymore. When you click the notes app, only the then open pinned notes will become active. You have to close all your pinned notes first, if you want to re-open the main notes window in order to create a new note, or to open another one.
This is very annoying indeed.

In addition, when you pin a note, close the main window, then close the pinned notes in order to re-open the main notes window, you may will find your previously pinned notes in double, or even triplicate when you select to view "All Notes". As it turns out, the previously "pinned" notes are now appearing both in their original folder (in my case in iCloud), and in the "recovered items" folder under "On My Mac".


How can I send text from an iPhone to a PC? I don't have an email client set up on my PC.

I'm looking for a simple way to send some text from my iPhone to my PC.

I could use Dropbox, or I could email my Dropbox account.
But each of these methods requires a lot of effort.

Ideally, I'd like something where I can paste and tap send and have it pop up on my PC.

Any ideas?

Create a gmail or hotmail account as these have a web interface, and send the text as email to said account.

There's an app for that!
I found the perfect solution, download
Lazy Text iOS app. Works for any desktop computer, you have to be in same network.
And at the moment is FREE.


What extension exist for Safari to watch Youtube videos using a foreign IP? In Germany many (music) videos get blocked on Youtube because Youtube and the GEMA have not yet managed to agree on a deal for copyright fees.

This struggle has been going on for years now and there exist plenty of legal solutions for Firefox and Chrome to use a proxy service - provided by an extension - that will enable you to watch the video using a foreign IP (preferably, US or UK).

Are there extensions for Safari that enable you to watch Youtube videos using a foreign IP?

this is a common problem, due to possible copyright infringement issues.
you can add the following proxy-url to your bookmarks and use it in combination with copy/paste. sure that is not exactly what you have asked for, but it works and the amount of time is the same!

01 and here is a list of other possible proxy-hosts

youtube has blocked so many videos but youtube unblocker automatically adds a link to play the blocked videos as it opens in a new tab via proxy site and the video will be submitted and can start playing the video.


How to use Family Sharing on iPhone 4 and other devices? I have multiple devices on 1 apple ID (an iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, iPod Touch 5, iPhone 4) and would like the devices to have separate apple IDs. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s have separate apple IDs and the iPhone 4 and iPod touch 5 will have the same apple ID. How can I setup the iPhone 4 to use family sharing even though it does not have iOS 8? Is this even possible?

Thanks!

I turned on Family Sharing for my kids on my iPhone 5 that has iOS 8. After entering their emails, I entered their passwords. On their iOS 8 iPads, purchases from all the family members show up, but not on the iPod 4 or iPhone 4.

However, my kids on those devices still have "Ask to buy" show up. If you want them to have access to all of your apps, you could jailbreak (redsn0w for iPod 4 on iOS 6 and evasi0n for iPhone 4 on iOS 7) and install Account Changer. If it weren't for the "Ask to buy," we would have stayed with Account Changer only.

Check if these two links can help you or not.
https://support.apple.com/en-nz/HT201088
https://support.apple.com/en-nz/HT201085


How to remove unused MacPorts packages? Whenever I install a program via MacPorts, it gets and installs lots of dependencies. When I uninstall said program, how do I make MacPorts recursively remove all unused dependencies with it?

To avoid accidentally cutting leaves that might be things you requested you should install the port_cutleaves package then run sudo port_cutleaves
https://guide.macports.org/#using.common-tasks.keeplean

MacPorts 1.9.0 added the sqlite portdbformat and MacPorts 2.0.0 dropped the old flat format. The sqlite port DB format is the default for new installations; old installations that were upgraded to 1.9.x will continue to use the flat format1. You can convert a 1.9.x flat system to the sqlite format by upgrading to MacPorts 2.0 or by changing the portdbformat value in  /opt/local/etc/macports/macports.conf and then issuing a port command as root (e.g. sudo port installed).

One of the features of the new format is that it keeps track of “requested” versus “unrequested” port installations. An unrequested port is one that was only installed because some other port depends on it. The leaves pseudo-portname expands to all the unrequested ports upon which no other installed port depends. You can use this to “clean up” unneeded ports even if you did not originally uninstall them with sudo port uninstall --follow-dependencies portname (which will do what you want, but only if you remember to use it every time you uninstall something).

You should examine your existing leaves before uninstalling any of them.

port echo leaves

Some common leaves (automake, gperf, libtool, pkgconfig) are build-time dependencies of common ports, so you may want to “request” them (sudo port setrequested port1 port2 port3 …) to avoid uninstalling them just to have to reinstall them later.

You can uninstall any remaining leaves quite easily:

sudo port uninstall leaves

Note: Before pruning your leaves, you may also want to uninstall old versions of ports that are no longer “active”. This may reveal a few more leaves (i.e. ports that are dependencies of ports that are installed, but inactive):

sudo port uninstall inactive

There are several sections in the MacPorts Guide that also describe the process of using leaves to uninstall unneeded ports.

I think the other answers, and the --follow-dependents flag, do not do what you want. If you install A, and A requires B, then thanks to the wonderful package management systems, B will be installed for you. You can uninstall B and the --follow-dependents flag will be aware of and remove A. But what if you uninstall A, which is more likely, because A is what you manually installed in the first place? In this case, B is left behind.

If you use fink, the debfoster package is designed to clean out your system and remove unused dependencies.

  Debfoster will help you get rid of
  packages (libraries for example) get
  left behind on your system when the
  program that required it was removed
  or upgraded to a version that doesn't
  have the dependency.

While debfoster will not work for MacPorts, there appears to be ports of debfoster, for example, portsfoster, although it seems to be discontinued...

Perhaps no solution currently exists for MacPorts.


Mail.app shows empty Gmail labels, but they're not empty in Gmail This used to work, but at some point it stopped.  I have labels defined in Gmail. In Mail.app they show up as folders on the left side, like:

That image shows the apartments label. The problem is that Mail.app thinks there are 0 message in apartments, but if I go to Gmail I see 27 messages.

The "Show in IMAP" checkbox is checked in Gmail settings.

I had the same issue, under Mailbox there is a Synchronise option. This worked for me on Sierra.


Getting field data from a Bento database using Applescript I'm having problems getting the field values out of a Bento database using Applescript:

I'mn using the following code to get at the entries but I'm not able to get at the cells or fields associated with the entries. Can anyone point me in the right direction:

tell application "Bento"
repeat with i from 1 to count of libraries
    set theName to name of library i
    log theName
    if theName is equal to "Reconnaissance site report" then
        log "The library has been found"
        set theLibraryProperties to properties of library i
        log theLibraryProperties
        tell library i
            repeat with j from 1 to count of entries
                set theEntryName to id of entry j
                set theEntryProperties to properties of entry j
                log theEntryName
                log theEntryProperties
            end repeat
        end tell
    end if
end repeat
end tell

Bento's scripting dictionary is pretty thin. It looks like field, entries and cells all are in the Bento 3 scripting dictionary - so it's hard to tell if they have been there all along or are added for future use.

I'm not really skilled at debugging AppleScript so I can't see any errors with the code you posted.

Have you tried looping over _source_items_ for fields and cells? The dictionary seems to indicate that the data lies there and not as easily accessed from a collection. That and a lot of logging might make up for the lack of an interactive tool to query the scripting bridge.

Scripting is a feature differentiator between Bento and the more full featured Filemaker product from the same people.

Have you tried using sqlite3 to just read the database at ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bento/bento.bentodb/Contents/Resources/Database ?

The schema and tables are all open to whatever SQL tool you like. I hope it's just a matter of constructing the right query if you prefer AppleScript (and there is a lot to prefer about it over command line scripting).

Bike has some good advice there, but i'll add some hopefully usefull information.

The library/collection you selected, each of the fields in the library should be stored in the 'fields' property of the library.

As you iterate over the entries, each entry contains a cells collection where the name of each cell matches the name of the fields in the fields collection

  Set myValue to cell "field name" of entry j

Sorry, I can't post any real code atm, writing from the iPad.


Save an app for later download? I am looking for a way to create a wish list in the App Store, like you can in iTunes on the desktop.

Is it possible to do this on the App Store from an iPhone?

That is actually a feature I've seen with "third party" app stores but never in the official App Store itself. I did however just check and I guess the closest in relevancy is the feature to "Tell A Friend". I presume you could simply tell yourself by emailing the direct link for that App Store application.

Click the arrow next to the price and select "Add to Wish List".


MacBook does not recognize iPad My problem is that my iPad is not recognized by my MacBook. Other iOS devices are recognised normally by the very same MacBook.
The iPad charges, but nothing else works.

My specifications are the following:

iPad 1st generation (firmware 5.1.1) & jailbroken
MacBook Pro Mid-2012 (firmware 10.9.1)
iTunes 11.1.3

I have tried the following solutions:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1591
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3540 (I know, Snow Leopard only, but I still tried)
The iPad is also not recognised in Recovery Mode or DFU Mode
When I try deleting all files on my iPad (Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings), it freezes (spinning weel until "out-of-charge") and nothing happens until I restart using the Home and Power buttons.

It should be noted that the same issue occurs using other Macs or PCs. So my guess would be that the Jailbreak corrupted some essential files for syncing?!

EDIT 1

This is an edit in response to bmike's comment. The System Profiler shows me these settings.

EDIT 2

Kovah mentioned that the version of iTunes could be the issue. I have downgraded my iTunes to version 9.2.1 and did not solve the issue.

We had some customers in our store with similar problems. Mainly they came with an iPhone 2 / 3 and asked for help because their Macs won't recognize them. Some (not all devices!) worked on an older Mac with OSX < 10.7 and a lower iTunes version. If you have a friend or family member with an older Mac try to connect to this one.
If it's not working I would say the iPad is "bricked".

Taken from this Apple Support Article : http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1591

Follow these steps to resolve your issue:

Ensure that your Mac meets the minimum system requirements for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Install software updates on your Mac.

Note: If an iTunes update is available, apply the update.

Check USB connections. iOS devices require USB 2.0 to function properly. If you're not sure your Mac has USB 2.0 ports, refer to the computer's specifications.

Disconnect other USB devices and connect your device directly to a USB port on your Mac.

Restart your Mac.


Move using keyboard instead of drag and drop I wonder how I can move items/folders using keyboard instead of drag and drop. Like sometimes I'm opening a folder and there is an item in it which I want to move it to another location but I don't want to open another finder window and drag and drop.
I'm using macOS Sierra

You can Cut, Copy or Paste using the keyboard - though as Finder has no actual Cut command, you move files in a slightly different way from how you would do it on Windows.

Copy is  Cmd ⌘   C
Paste is  Cmd ⌘   V
very similar to Windows, however, cutting a file leaves the potential for losing it, if for instance you forgot, or had a power cut, or copied something else before you remembered to paste, etc.

So Finder doesn't let you do that.
Instead it leaves the file exactly where it was until you make the actual call to move it.
You do that with Copy, as above, then  Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   V .
Think of it as 'Option Paste'.

That will securely move the file to its new location. That can be on the same volume, or a different one. It will execute the move differently for each of those scenarios, but the end result is the same, your file is now safely in its new location.

Amongst the methods for picking where it will go...

Open two Finder windows, so you can see source & destination simultaneously.
Use column view, which you can navigate using just the arrow keys.
Use Tab view, so you can have two or more locations ready in a single window.


How to stop an iPhone 3G from using cell data, ever? My wife has inherited my iPhone 3G and it's using a few megabytes of GPRS data every month even though she doesn't deliberately use any services that cost mobile data. The problem is that she doesn't have a data plan, so these few MB's cost as much as a few gigabytes would with a data plan.

1: How can I set up the iPhone 3G (OS 3.1.3) so that it absolutely never sends or receives any data except on wifi?

2: Also, what is sending/receiving this GPRS data if it isn't the user? My wife never launches the web browser or other Internet-needing apps.

Please don't simply suggest the obvious get a data plan because my wife doesn't want one. She wants to use the thing as a cell phone and for text messaging, but certainly absolutely positively no Internet or e-mail or whatever, except when she's on our home's wifi.

I thought I had thoroughly turned off mobile data. Here's what I've done so far (written from my memory, might be inaccurate):

Settings > General > Network:
- enable 3G = off
- cellular data = off
- data roaming = off

SBsettings:
- 3G = off
- data = off
- bluetooth = off
- location = off

Based on all this, the damn thing should only use wifi, but somehow it uses GPRS data anyway. Argh!

Solution:
Well, I didn't manage to turn off the mobile data usage despite all your very useful and helpful suggestions. Instead, I spoke with the provider and they offered me 8 months of 1GB-per-months for free, and after that I'm free to cancel it or continue at €7 per month (or whatever the rate will be at that time). They also gave me the money back for the data costs on the last bill. Very good customer service, thank you tele.ring of Austria.

In my country (Australia) we are able to ask the mobile provider to disable data on our accounts to ensure we cannot use any at all, and thus cannot be charged for it unwillingly. It might be worth calling up the provider and asking if they can disable the data service.


Is there a way to take videos on iOS, with music playing? I came over a bug last month that enabled me to legitimately record a video on my iPhone's camera app without having to pause the music that was playing. But I shut my phone off and back on and it stopped working, I wish someone knew how to trigger this again or inform me if it was patched by apple in a recent update, but yea, that's basically it.

You can't currently record a video while playing music using the native app.

Good news is that you can use 3rd party apps to do it instead, here is an example.

Cheers


Google Inbox as a standalone app via Chrome Google Inbox recently added compatibility with Safari and yet still does not play nice with Fluid.

I decided I might as well use Chrome. Google recently improved the way "desktop app extensions" work by giving them their own independent icons in Applications and Launchpad.

Unfortunately, this is acting like a glorified bookmark, rather than a standalone app. I.e., it opens with a toolbar and opens the site as a tab. I tried exploring the "contents" of the application icon Google creates. I found a plist but could not figure out if there was away to force the app to open an independent standalone Chrome window.

Any ideas on how I could modify the app to act less like a bookmark and more like a standalone desktop app ?

Akmal has released Chrome App that does exactly this.
You could take a look at his code to see how he's done it.

I would mention that he is running the webview through scan.me, so getting analytics to how many people are visiting it.

This script will create an app from a website for you.

There is either an instalator or a shell script to enter the name, icon and url for your app to be shown in your default browser without toolbars. It opens in a separate profile user profile so you will have to login again  there. If you need an extensions for that profile you need to add them in a new tab which opens in a new window.


What is Tanium spyware, what information does it collect, and how to disable it? a company put some spyware on a brand new laptop that is causing the battery life to be about half that of a 3-year old Macbook Pro. I need to disable this junkware/spyware temporarily. Is there a good way to do that? What is it (Tanium) recording anyway? Cheers.

Mr. Google sends you to the Tanium website, where you will find Tanium is a systems management tool for enterprises. If you want to disable it, you'll probably need to contact the IT department that put it on the machine in the first place. The software is put on to enforce company policy and allow the IT department to monitor and control the laptop. An off-switch that is easy to activate tends to defeat the purpose of the software.

Can read every keystroke, every file, browser history, log files, binaries, .docx, .xlsx, .pdf, etc.

Believe it ... :)


Sign out of YouTube on iPhone video app uploader I uploaded a video to my YouTube account from a friend's iPhone.  Now I want to to sign out so that he can upload videos from his own account, but it's no longer prompting to login to a YouTube account or giving an option to log out, it's just leaving my account signed in.  Help?  Thanks.

Start the YouTube app on the iPhone
Select ".../More" at the bottom right
Select "Sign out" at the top left

Go to settings and you should be able to find a log out option


Image capture "import error (-50)" images import fine, but won't delete from phone? My iPhone 5 recently broke, so I got an iPhone 5s. I restored from a backup using iTunes, and configured any remaining settings fine.

Usually to take images from my phone's camera I plug the phone into the computer and use Image Capture, then drag the images from Image Capture to the file I want. I have the "delete after import" setting selected so that the images are removed from my phone after import to save space.

Now when I try this with the new phone it works fine on importing the photos, but I get an error (see attached screenshot) and the images don't auto delete from my phone.

Any ideas how I can resolve this?

UPDATE - Laptop & Phone Spec

My computer - Mid 2012 MBP 15" running osx 10.9.5

My iPhone - 5s running iOS 8.3

I've noticed this is now solved on my iPhone. I'm not 100% sure how I did it but the 2 notable things I did very recently were:

rename the iPhone from "iphone(3)" to "Sam's iPhone"
turned off iCloud on the iPhone then turned in back on

Not sure which one solved it; would be good if any one who has this issue does the same and report back to be able to clarify.

restart computer. it may too much applications running in the same time.


Double-clicking on a song in Finder launches Music.app but doesn't play it Back in the day of iTunes, when double-clicking on a song in Finder it oppened iTunes and started playing it.
Now, using Music, the same action only open Music and copies the song into it. Then I have to it play from the app (and search for that new song I just added).
How can I get back the open & play feature ? I checked in Music's preferences and searched same issue on the web but nothing came up.
I'm using a 2017 Macbook Pro on Big Sur 11.3.1 and Music 1.1.4.110

Maybe there is a setting in Preferences that causes the song to play. Here is an image of my Preferences Panel for the General settings.

And the panel for Playback.


Replacement battery for Macbook Air 2011: equal to or better than original I need to replace a battery for my Macbook Air 13" mid-2011. There is no Apple's own repair service where I live, and I'm fairly savvy with electronics to do my own repairs.

How can I identify batteries for sale that are either genuine Apple parts or determine if alternative replacement batteries they are at least equal, but preferably better than, the original MacBook Air battery I have.

By "equal or better" I mean that it lasts at least as many cycles. I.e. after equal number of charges, it keeps Macbook running roughly as long as the genuine battery on a single charge, given the equal load.

(this answer was written for the previous edition of the question)

I didn't find any "most robust and lasting" choice yet, but I contacted iFixit re their replacement battery, and this is what I found out.

They claim that they sell the battery:

manufactured by the same company that manufactures Apple's battery
its initial power-on time on a single charge is better compared to the original battery: "buying a brand new battery will get you back to where your computer was [in same time between charges] when you first bought it"
there's 6-month warranty for a case if it performs poorly at customer's computer

However:

I failed to get any comment on how it can be possible that Apple allows its manufacturer to sell parts that Apple itself doesn't normally sell (which is the case for MBA-2011 batteries)
the sales rep couldn't provide any tests proving the "with better life" statement, nor even confirm that such tests were ever performed: "Unfortunately I do not have any tests to show [better life / better time between charges] as we have found those to not be needed"
could not confirm that any part of these statements are true:

the replacement will last comparable number of recharge cycles as the battery installed by an official Apple service
the replacement's poweron time on a single charge will be the same (or ideally better) than how could original battery installed by Apple service perform, at (most) every point in the battery life

The above data doesn't exclude what I experienced with low-quality third-party batteries for non-Apple products: initially they start with unprecedented time on a single charge, but after few months time on a charge deteriorates to less than an hour.

But let's see what answers a question on performance of iFixit batteries will bring.

I am currently recommending batteries from OWC (One World Computing)

  http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/powerbook/batteries/

and from FastMac

  http://fastmac.com


How to recover Mountain Lion's dmg file after installation? I downloaded Mountain Lion from App Store and installed it.

I have not set Time Machine and I installed Mountain Lion one hour ago (since posting this question).

The dmg file is not in Applications folder anymore.

How to recover Mountain Lion's dmg file after installation?

After Mountain Lion is installed, your Mac auto-deletes "Installer Mountain Lion.app". So before installs or upgrades like that, you must make a backup (compress it and move file compressed to anywhere, where you put storage data).

And now, you need to download "Installer Mountain Lion.app" again from the App Store.

Yere if you download the app its invisably stored into your MacBook


How to prevent OS X from launching programs from another disk? I just did a fresh install of Mountain Lion on an empty partition. How can I prevent the programs of the previous install from being shown in the contextual menus in Finder ?  I already asked Spotlight not to index that partition, but I still have references to them in the Open With menus.

Try rebuilding the launch services database using the lsregister command. That database provides the information for the open menu, etc as noted in How to rebuild the LaunchServices database  from Macworld's Mac OS X Hints. Rebuilding the launch service database while running from the newly installed partition should fix the problem of trying to open Applications on the other drive partition.

  If your "Open With" menu shows applications that are no longer installed, or shows some of them as duplicates, you can use the following Terminal command to rebuild your LaunchServices database:

For OS X 10.6 and later run:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system

For OS X 10.5 and older run:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

If the problem persists after running the above command, try un mounting your original partition before running the above command again. Additionally, as noted on the hints article and when running the lsregister  command with no arguments there is some helpful output that will allow further customization to specify where to look for Applications, etc.

Is it possible for you to move them to another drive or remove them? If you really want to keep them on the drive that they're currently on you can also make them, or the folder that they're in into a .zip file.

Or if it is just about specific applications that come up all the time in the Open With... menus, then this link will show you how to remove specific applications from the Open With menu.


How to clear ALL items from Safari's reading list? How to clear ALL items from Safari's reading list?
I have 100's of items in the list so do not want do do them individually.

I tried removing Bookmarks.plist in ~/Library/Safari/ which deletes the reading list on the mac locally but iCloud just adds them back, when syncing.

In more recent Safari versions where the button has gone away, just right-click or Control-click an item in the list. The context menu will show a Clear all… choice there.

Swipe item on list you want to delete. Delete option will appear.


Storage Management on Catalina displays nonexisting apps. How to fix? My daughter's MPB running Catalina displays the following in Storage Management:

As you can see, there are two apps shown that come from Steam. But these apps have been deleted in the Finder. The storage is not used anywhere in her Application Support Steam folder (storage used there is 10GB, because of the Subnautica app only). Show in Finder does nothing and Delete... does nothing as well.
We would like to get Storage Management to give the correct info so we actually know if that is still in use storage or that it is just another display bug. We tried several things, including turning off TimeMachine and removing all local snapshots, running Repair from Disk Utility, reindex Spotlight, etc., but nothing so far has helped.
FileVault2 is active on the system.
This question is like this question from Sep 2019 (which did not get an answer so far) but with some more info on what we tried and with a fully up to date Catalina as per today. I can do technical things if people have suggestions, that might answer both questions. In both cases these were Steam apps, so there is a potential Steam on macOS issue here.

From the Steam Knowledge base on Uninstalling from macOS:

Just dragging the Steam program to the Trash will not fully uninstall Steam. The additional steps below are required.

Open Applications and drag Steam to the Trash.

click Go in the menu bar, hold down the option key until you see the Library folder, and open that folder from the drop-down.

Navigate to Library/Application Support/Steam

Delete Steam data from your computer with one of the following options:

If you don't want to lose any game data: delete all files and folders in /Steam EXCEPT FOR the /SteamApps folder (this contains your game downloads and any local save files.)

If you're removing all Steam data from your computer: delete the entire Steam folder.

Empty the Trash by selecting Finder -> Empty Trash

Reindex your Hard Drive
If Storage Management (like Steam) is just a front end to all of the system services and it just may not be updated.  If it is still showing that the Application is there, it may be required to re-index your drive.  In Terminal, issue the following command:
% sudo mdutil -E /

Many apps install files in various locations on your mac. Deleting the app will not delete these other files. I would check if there is an uninstaller for the 2 apps in question. If so run the uninstaller. If not try searching for the app name and see if you can find the other parts of the installed app. If you find these delete them.


How do I enter Dutch names in Address Book? Dutch surnames are kind of weird, in that a lot of them start with small words such as
de/'t/het ("the"), van ("of"), van 't, van der ("of the"), etc. This makes them a pain to enter in most address books, since you really want to ignore that part of the name when sorting, but not when displaying. This means you get "Piet Vries" instead of "Piet de Vries".

While Address Book has the "middle name" field, which can be abused for this, it really isn't meant for it, causing some applications (iCal, for example) to ignore the field, showing an incomplete name.

iTunes solves this problem for artist and album names, giving you a "sort album" or "sort artist" field to enter a string to sort on (so "The Beatles" are sorted as if they're called "Beatles"). I haven't been able to find a similar field in Address book.

So, what is the correct way to make Address Book deal with this?

My preference is to list their name as something like "Heirseele, van" because when searching by last name you'll still find them using "van" if you decided to. Putting the preposition in another field is a little hackey (and incorrect from a data-integrity point of view) for me.

For the benefit of others: in Dutch, all those prefixes are part of the name. You refer to someone in Dutch as "Meneer van Heirseele" not as "Meneer Heirseele". Those names haven't joined the prepositions like French names have (e.g., Dupré).

Just my two cents…

They've got prefix and suffix fields, so would it really be that hard to have a mid-fix or whatever the correct english term is field?

Google suggests infix or interfix, BTW.


WiFi monitor that is iOS compatible I am trying to find a Display that can allow my iOS, MacBook Pro to connect to it wirelessly.

I am looking for a solution with the least number of hardware components (aside from the display).

I heard of software solutions like AirDisplay, Air Parrot, Reflection but I am seeking a hardware solution (something I can take to go for a presentation)

AppleTV is compatible with iPad 2 (and newer), and with computers since 2011

More info at: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5404

You can hook up your AppleTV to any HDMI-compatible TV

try this app its great for multi display and Screen sharing with Macbook or a PC
but only available for iPad, you can control ur MAC or PC too-
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/parallels-access/id655527928?mt=8


Will iPhone X from TMobile A1865 or A1901 work globally? I travel frequently between China and the US. I have T mobile in the US and Unicom in China.

According to apple's official website, the iPhone X (A1865) is the only model that works with China Unicom.

I plan to purchase an iPhone X with the option for Tmobile on Apple's website. According to MacRumors, iPhone X with T Mobile is supposed to be A1901.

However, "the iPhone X A1865 is considered the global phone as it works on both GSM and CDMA networks. This phone is also available as a SIM-free factory-unlocked version at Apple Store."

Which of these statements are true?

Which iPhone X model should I purchase if I am only interested in LTE?

According to https://www.techwalls.com/iphone-x-models-a1865-a1901-a1902-differences/ you better buy A1865 which works globally:

A1865
The iPhone X A1865 is considered the global phone as it works on both GSM and CDMA networks. This phone is also available as a SIM-free factory-unlocked version at Apple Store
A1901
The iPhone X A1901 is the GSM version. It is available on AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States, as well as many other Europe and Asia countries.

An iPhone X from T-Mobile should work outside the US but just to make sure try asking T-Mobile to be sure


How can I make iMovie delete videos from my iPhone after importing them? In iPhoto, after you import images you can tell it to delete the files off of your phone. Is there a way to do this in iMovie?

I don't think you can, but you can delete them using Image Capture!

Image Capture lives in your Applications folder and can show the contents of a camera (or your iPhone's camera roll) as a list, and you can manipulate it directly, including deleting some or all of it. I'd just pull up Image Capture after your import, and then sort by kind to isolate the movies, and delete the items you just imported.

Go to the photos app, then albums, then videos ..... you will see your video there and can delete.


Does iTunes remember what I listened to and when? iTunes has a field named "Last Played" that tells me when I last played a track; is there any way of finding out all the songs I listened to on a particular date? I'm using iTunes 11 under OS X 10.6.8.

Nope.

Unfortunately, iTunes does not save an exact history of when you played certain songs, only the order in which you heard them.
There is no way you can know which song you hear, say, 3 hours and 10 minutes ago (totally random figures).

You can export your library as xml file. Open this file and search for any date you want...


How can I set the background image the same on all master slides without editing each master slide individually in Keynote? In PowerPoint the master slides have inheritance, so you can set common elements on all the master slides easily. I don't see anyway to do this in Keynote. For example, if I want to set the background image on all the master slides then I need to edit the background image on each master slide.

How to set the background image the same on all master slides without editing each master slide individually?

It appears the correct answer is I cannot do this unfortunately.

Yes you an do it. Very simple,  select all the slides you want to change (shift click & highlight them)  Open inspector, slide tab, appearance , background and change the background. There is a drop down where you can change the colour, gradient, image etc.


Ping on Mavericks on late 2013 MacBook Pro slow and variable compared to Windows I had a couple of issues connecting to an SMB share last night so started using ping to test connectivity.

At that point I noticed the ping was very slow and variable - my Windows laptop shows <1ms for all pings to the router.

An example:

64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=335 ttl=64 time=208.350 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=336 ttl=64 time=129.768 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=337 ttl=64 time=51.067 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=338 ttl=64 time=278.491 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=339 ttl=64 time=1.315 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=340 ttl=64 time=120.040 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=341 ttl=64 time=40.420 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=342 ttl=64 time=267.817 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=343 ttl=64 time=188.607 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=344 ttl=64 time=109.445 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=345 ttl=64 time=1.313 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=346 ttl=64 time=1.905 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=347 ttl=64 time=3.662 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=348 ttl=64 time=100.708 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=349 ttl=64 time=21.266 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=350 ttl=64 time=1.674 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=351 ttl=64 time=1.397 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=352 ttl=64 time=89.599 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=353 ttl=64 time=10.996 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=354 ttl=64 time=341.583 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=355 ttl=64 time=159.329 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=356 ttl=64 time=81.145 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=357 ttl=64 time=1.945 ms

I have not seen any other symptoms - network speeds and things like ping test are fine. I see similar behaviour when pinging external sites though - much slower and variable.

I have tried plugging into power (possibly power saving could cause this) and also restarting.

I searched before posting and found no other questions, but now one of the related questions is useful - changing the interval to 200ms makes the pings fast and consistent.

But why would changing the ping interval to be 200ms instead of 1s change the latency?

The ping on Mavericks is badly broken. The reason for this is Mavericks puts network card into a power save mode within milliseconds when there's no traffic that it considers vital, and apparently it doesn't consider pings to be valuable traffic, therefore the network card (or, rather, wifi card) goes to "sleep" immediately, and it takes time for it to do so, therefore causing completely random ping results.

I have submitted a bug report to Apple in the early beta stages of the Mavericks, but they refused to address the issue, claiming "will not fix".

So the results you're seeing are not representative of the actual network connection.

I've created an app called PingFixer to address this issue. You can download it here: https://gum.co/PingFixer

Kevin


Any way to sort each column differently in the Finder? Is there any way in the Finder to sort each column in column view by different criteria? When I select a sort order, it applies universally to every column.

For example, I would like to sort a particular folder by kind, but the contents of a subfolder of that folder by date.

There may be a third-party way to do this I haven't heard of, but there is no way to achieve what you want here using native OS X settings.

Yup you can do that by using the View Options panel.  Open the folder then from the View menu select the "Show View Options".  This brings up the View Options panel.  Here you can set your views for each folder.

For example, I have my Downloads folder set to Always open in List View and Sort By Date Added.  This way the most recently downloaded file is always at the top.  No matter what the view was configured in the previous folder, when I open the Downloads folder, it uses these settings.

I have many other folders set up in specific configurations.  Work images is in a large cover flow layout.  Icon development folder is in Icon View with large icons.  etc...  I'm sure you can come up with many different configurations.

If you have a configuration you want to be the default for any new folders or folders that don't have a custom view configured, click on the Use As Defaults button.


How to download OS X El Capitan without Apple hardware I recently purchased a MacBook (Mid-2009), but the hard drive is empty, no OS X and etc. I want to download the Install OS X El Capitan.app and install it, but I don't have any other Mac hardware to do that with. What should I do?

Go to Apple Store and purchase the install disc?
My friend has iMac and ask him if he could download the installer and make the USB Installer?

There is no OS X El Capitan install disk. OS X is distributed through the App Store now.

Yes, ask your friend to create a bootable installer for OS X El Capitan. It should be a fairly straightforward process.

Once you have the drive, hold down the option key while restarting your Mac to boot from the installer USB.

You can use Diskmaker. It will let you create a bootable USB disk and then install OS X.


How do I uninstall an app from my Mac? I know I'm a bit silly here, and I've just recently switched from Windows to Mac. All I would do on a PC is press Win+X and then the F key to get to "Programs and Features" window, and search for the app from the list and then uninstall them. So I was wondering if there is anything similar on Mac as well.

For most apps, it's easy as navigating to your Applications folder in the Finder, then dragging the application to the Trash icon in your Dock. You can also right-click and select 'Move to Trash', or hit ⌘-delete.

I should also add, many apps store your settings and data in a different directory which doesn't get deleted simply by deleting the app in the Applications folder. This is both good and bad. If you ever reinstall the app, all your settings and data will still be in place. Keeping these extra files around doesn't really do macOS any harm. Although if you're concerned about removing EVERYTHING for a particular app, it can be tough to make sure you get everything. There are various utilities that make this a bit easier, one I've used in the past is AppZapper.

If you're curious, these files are usually in ~/Library/Application Support and ~/Library/Preferences.


Safari hijacked by Safe Finder. Change homepage preference greyed out I must've downloaded this virus when I was prompted to download Flash thinking it was the real software. Now whenever I open Safari I get linked to this search engine. I had this issue with Chrome opening up TapuFind and a few other search engines - I fixed this by completely reinstalling Chrome.

I've tried many methods to remove it but can't get it to un-grey out:

Tried changing in the preferences panel but it's greyed out.

I don't have "Profiles" in my System Preferences.

I tried using Malwarebytes but it didn't help.
I tried a safe start with Safari (opening the app while holding down Shift) but that didn't allow me to edit the preferences panel.
Tried booting into Safe mode, but again that didn't help to let me edit the homepage.
Tried cleaning the Cache entirely but again, didn't help (as well at that list thing).
I don't think I have a modified hosts file

Is there anything else I can do to resolve this issue?

Deleting your Preferences properties file should do it.

Close Safari completely.
Open a Finder window and go to your Home folder (the one with your Username).
Go to the View menu, and select "Show View Options". (Alternatively, you can hit Command+J.)
At the very bottom of the options window, select (check the box) "Show Library Folder".
Now browse through these folders:
Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences
Once you drill down to Preferences, you'll see a file named com.apple.Safari.plist.  That's your preferences file.  Delete it.
Re-open Safari. Your preferences should all now be back to default.  You'll have to set things back the way you had them before, but you'll be rid of the messed-up settings.

That should do it!

Use MalwareBytes, (https://malwarebytes.com) a free anti-malware tool.  See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8591130 for more information and instructions.

There are multiple pages trying to get you to download other "removal" tools of questionable origin. (e.g. "Combo Cleaner")  MalwareBytes is widely known and respected


What does the plus sign next to the price of an app in the App Store mean? There is often a plus sign in the upper left corner of the price button for an app. Even some free apps have this plus sign.

It means that it is a universal app, able to run on the iPad and iPhone.

It means there are in-app purchases available under that app.  You can turn that feature off under your General Settings, Restrictions.


OS X 10.9: where are password hashes stored I think on previous versions of OS X, password were stored in the /etc/shadow file.

Nevertheless, this file doesn't appear to exist in the later versions of the operating system - specifically OS X 10.9 which is the first of the non-cat named OS releases.

Does anyone know where the password hashes are stored on OS X Mavericks?

Starting with Lion, OS X introduced a shadow file per user that is a plist dictionary that contains password hashes and other GID/UID/kerberos and open directory type keys.

The shadow files are stored on the filesystem at /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users. They are in plist format so you'll need to use the plutil command to view them or use the defaults command to extract/write specific keys if desired. Only the root user has access to the files.

To view the contents of a shadow file for a user:

sudo plutil -p /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/<username>.plist

To get the hash:

sudo defaults read /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/<username>.plist ShadowHashData|tr -dc 0-9a-f|xxd -r -p|plutil -convert xml1 - -o -

Where <username> in the above examples is the user you're looking for the hash for. You want the <data> section that corresponds to the <key>entropy</key> key in that plist output.

To continue on to try and crack the password see this tutorial.

I looked it up on Google and found this:
http://hackmac.org/forum/topic/2678-ceacking-os-x-mountain-lion-os-x-mavericks-os-x-yosemite-account-password


How To Changing Printer Scaling on Mac OS X 10.8.2 I am currently having an annoying problem where anything I print in Mac OS X 10.8.2 is scaled to 3%, and I cannot seem to change this through the printing menu.

I've attached a picture of my printing presets which shows that the scaling is stuck at 3%, though I cannot reset the scaling from this menu. The presets window shows the "scaling" option under "Copies & Pages" but this does not show up in the printing drop-down menu... so I'm stuck.

Does anyone know how to change this setting?

Here is what I did.

In for example TextEdit...

I used the Page set up!

In there you can adjust the scaling

Now go to the print and check you settings in show presets, current.

Your first step is to try printing to .pdf from a [virgin] User Account.

Failing that test, I would reinstall the O.S.


iPad Mail app doesn't completely search inbox or contact I tried to use my Mail app connected to Hotmail and Gmail to search for emails in my inbox and contacts, but the app doesn't fully search my emails in the inbox nor the contacts I have saved. What should I do to fix this?

Same experience. The only way I found was to go back to the good old desktop.


iPad 3 max framerate Has anyone tried to test the maximum frame rate one an iPad 3 connected to a 120Hz screen for example?

I would like to know if it's possible to achieve more than the 60fps using the any benchmark/test application or a custom test app using CADisplayLink on an external monitor.

Please report the application or game you tested with - I am leaving this wide open in terms of which app so as to get some initial data on what frame rate the hardware is capable of pushing.


What's a good Windows RDP client for Mac? I administer a number of Windows machines, and am trying to find a really good application to remote desktop in to them from my Mac.  I've tried CoRD, and I really like its library approach to saved sessions (as opposed to Microsoft's file based approach), and tabbed sessions are great when working on a bunch of machines.  Unfortunately, it's just too buggy for serious use, and given that it averages less than 2 releases a year, I have little hope that that will change.  Microsoft's official client is very bare bones and doesn't support connecting on non-standard ports (which I need).

Is there a remote desktop client for Mac out there that's both fully featured and not buggy?

Edit: Apparently the Microsoft doc I read that states that the Microsoft RDC client can't be used on non-standard ports is out of date.

Use RDC (Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2)
This free download runs natively on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based Macs

Use One Mac, unlimited Windows.

I use Real VNC. It works really well for me.


MacBook Pro won't boot of freshly installed copy of macOS Yesterday the SSD in my 13" mid-2012 MacBook Pro died. I replaced the old one with a new one.

First I tried to reinstall macOS with my Time Machine backup, but it failed. Then I tried to install a fresh copy from Internet Recovery Mode, that failed too. My last resort was to make a bootable USB on another Mac and install it that way. At first it seemed to work, but when it boots the drive does not show up as bootable.

I tried running Apple Hardware Check, but could not access it. It just showed a folder with a question mark.

Is there anything left to do?

Alright, I found out what the problem was. I was talking to a local IT-guy, he said, that SSDs from than manufactor, ADATA, wouldn't work with macOS.
So the only solution was to buy another one.

I would use that other Mac to make an OS installer. There are utilities that will take an installer and write it to a USB drive (8GB or greater) so that it can boot from that drive and install macOS. There is also a terminal command that will do the same thing. A little Google-fu will point you to those procedures.

Note that installing macOS on a drive and then putting that drive in another Mac does not always result in a drive that is bootable on both. Installers, however will boot any Mac that is capable of running that version of macOS. That is the path I would take


Help, I can't search from the App Launcher anymore I used to be able to start typing an application name in the App Launcher (F4) to filter the list. But at some point, this stopped working for some reason. I can't click the search box, nor does typing produce any characters into the search box.

Is there a setting I can flip, or could this be an issue with a corrupt system file?

Mac OS X 10.9.4 Mavericks
MacBook Air mid-2013, Intel Haswell Core i7

Run this in your Terminal to clear the Launcher.

sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db "DELETE from apps; \
DELETE from groups WHERE title<>''; DELETE from items WHERE rowid>2;" \
&& killall Dock

When this is done, you will have a marvelously blank Launchpad interface, so to add your applications again all you have to do is drag them to the Launchpad icon in the Dock (drag the Launchpad program itself from the /Applications folder to the Dock if it is not already there). Any new applications you purchase through the Mac App Store will be automatically added to Launchpad.

Be sure to back up the database file before you alter it by copying it to your Desktop or another safe location. If for some reason you have messed up Launchpad and wish to restore your previous settings then you can restore the backup (or even use Time Machine to restore a previously backed up database file) and then log out and log back in to your system.

Alternatively, if you wish to reset the Launchpad to its default settings and organization, then all you need to do is delete the database file. To do this, press the Option key and choose Library from the Go menu in the Finder, and then navigate to the /Application Support/Dock/ folder and remove the ".db" file (it will have a long string of letters and numbers as its name). Or you can run the following command in the Terminal:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db

Source: http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-reset-and-manage-the-os-x-10-7-launchpad-interface/

Updating to Mac OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks fixed the problem.


Flipboard-like iOS app for "reading" the whole web I like reading stuff online, and I like flipping through "pages". There's some apps with great UIs like Flipboard, but they only work on pre-curated content.

Is there any app like Flipboard that will let me search Google and open any URL I find?

You could make a Fluid app of Feedly and subscribe to completely random feeds so you're surprised by what turns up and/or even subscribe to the Pocket, Readability, etc. feeds of completely random people and/or the front page of Reddit. If you set Fluid to use Safari you can "flip" through the pages using the regular OS gestures. And Feedly allows you to choose from a variety of presentation modes. You could, also, do this with any desktop feed reader like Reeder 2, NetNewsWire, etc., but as far as I know creating a Feedly app with Fluid with Safari set as the browser may be the only way to "flip through pages" of completely random content.


What are some good data recovery programs to try on an SD card? My friend imported a bunch of videos from his GoPro into iPhoto and foolishly let iPhoto delete upon successful import. He claims that iPhoto then quit unexpectedly and all of the videos are gone.

My guess is the files are still in the library but not in the index. I will have a look later today when I go to help him out. However, in case the files are really gone I'll try to recover them from the SD card.

Any suggestions for doing that?

I successfully used TestDisk to get photos back from an SD card.

Your best chance of recovering the photos from the SD card is digital picture recovery software.  Many of them offer a free trial you can download and try before you buy it.  Picture Rescue 2 http://www.prosofteng.com/downloads/download.php?prodID=93 by Prosoft has been around for over 10 years and is easy to use, plus will show you a thumbnail preview of the photo prior to recovery.


How can I use Terminal to monitor a network interfaces total traffic in Mb I would like to use the terminal to monitor the network traffic on a given interface, with a view to providing alerts when certain cumulative totals have been exceeded.

The script needs to gain statistics from the point in which it is started, and there is no requirement to store values for future reference, or retain values over reboots etc.  I would like the output to be human readable, so values in Gb or Mb, not packets or bytes.

The intention is to be able to include this script in an Automator application that will run in the background, and open a dialogue box at set thresholds to alert me to when I nearing a download limit, allowing to choose to disconnect the modem etc.

I do not wish to download any tools or applications, and just wish to use the tools a standard installation provides for the terminal.  Getting data out of an application via applescript would be acceptable, but only if that application is also a standard tool, like activity monitor.

Sounds like nettop is what you're looking for.  Start it with the help parameter to see the options.

nettop -nc -m route seems to be the best overall traffic gauge but will need additional scripting to parse the output for you

a useful command is sudo tcpdump -i en0 - v
you will have to supply your system password -


Java - version 1.7.45 - and Mavericks Chrome refused to run a java app unless i upgraded to .45, which I did my dling the installer from oracle.  Java 7 u45.  Installer said it worked.  Chrome still won't start java.

$ which java
/usr/bin/java

$ java -version
java version "1.7.0_06"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_06-b24)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.2-b09, mixed mode)
~/private/WDI/git

I may be easily fooled, but that doesn't say "45" anywhere.  (Yes, "06", and "24" and "23.2-b09", but nary a 45.  Such numbers!)

Anybody know if this is u45, or where the installer placed it?

UPDATE: there is a Java System Preference Panel that says "Your system has the recommended version of Java: Java 7 Update 45."  Still, Chrome doesn't appear to see it.

The issue is that Oracle is being confusing abut the JRE.

The OSX JRE, which is what you downloaded, does not update /usr/bin/java it just installs itself to /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/

You can either use the path to the java binary beneath that or instead install the JDK from this page which does update /usr/bin/java

@RichTrouton's answer might be correct on what Chrome uses i.e. a 32 bit JRE but this answer explained /usr/bin/java issues. Note that the simple Oracle JRE does not update /usr/bin/java and I think Apple's later installs do not touch this either. Your browser does not use /usr/bin/java but directly looks in /System or /Library

Open your Terminal, using java -version gives you an error or Java Version 6.
Get the SRE dmg at https://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp
Install it
In your terminal, type: export JAVA_HOME="/Library/InternetPlug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home"
java -version now
gives you java version "1.7.0_**" (i.e. newest java version)

To make this work every time you boot up terminal type the following line of code into terminal.

echo export JAVA_HOME=\"/Library/Internet Plug- Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home\" >> ~/.bash_profile

This will make it use java 7 every time you use terminal.

References:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/19582689/2719960 (Note: the second answer in the Stack Overflow question, not the one marked as correct is the one you want. The one marked as correct install Java 6 back onto Mavericks, I believe).


Disable storage of invisible files "._" on my cfs or smb network storage I use OS X Mavericks and have some company storage drives mounted (using smb or cfs).
(smb://username@address.path.toserver.com/directory/data).
When I work with files on the drive or copy files to the drive, some hidden files are created. Most of these files start with dot-dash ._ and then the filename of the original file, like:

._test001.png
._test002.png
._test003.png

And most of the times, the famous ._.DS_Store and .DS_Store are also there.

On my Mac, these . dot items are invisible, but my windows colleagues do see these files. How can I prevent OS X from making these strange invisible files?

On support.apple.com (and other internet sources) you can find a 'defaults write' to disable the creation of .DS_Store files on your network drives. But this does not work in Mavericks:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true

For now I use this oneliner, but doing a rm -rf does feel wrong in this case.

find . -type f -name "._*" -exec rm "{}" \;

Edit: I don't want to delete the files or exclude them from copying. I want them not to be created in the first place.

Edit: I prefer a 'native' OS X solution over third party apps.

Edit: This questions has two answers, one for the ._ files and one for the .DS_Store files. The bounty is rewarded for dot_clean, this native command line app cleans all ._ files. Unfortunately is does not clear the .DS_Store files, this can effectively be done with Asepsis. Asepsis stores .DS_Stores in a fixed location, and not in the folder itself.

I will admit, I hadn't noticed that the defaults write command stopped working in Mavericks.
However, when I DO clean network mounts, instead of your one liner find and rm, I use this:

dot_clean .

The manfile explains:

dot_clean -- Merge ._* files with corresponding native files.

I don't use the -m flag, but you may find it helpful in your situation.

-m      Always delete dot underbar files.

Here is another person actively trying to stop .DS_Store files from being created:
http://www.aorensoftware.com/blog/2011/12/24/death-to-ds_store/ - looks like he doesn't want them on drives as much as he doesn't want them on the network!

I found a very easy and free way to get rid go ._ files, especially from an external fat32 HD.

Launch OnyX (free software). From Utilities, go to AppleDouble, select... the folder. Thats it!!!


Can I connect two 27 inch (Thunderbolt-2) mac monitors to a 13" 2016 Macbook Pro with touch bar? I want to run my laptop screen and both 27" Apple displays at the same time. Basically achieve this setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPoGnm7PZQc but with my hardware.

I'm seeing some conflicting reports about my laptop's ability to run two monitors at the same time. There are also bad reviews for the official adapter: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter?fnode=16b1c754f291e8a4b528715c470463e53359bb4b85ab8f7a3c17a9ca31404b5b0777165ed94086997d7f2f62a908c8e4917dd4622b9fb13f692c13d5db7714673162075736e96e72357cb968f859f469ceabe10ebc138a172aa06414d935cd6d

Is what I'm trying to do possible? And if it is, assuming I have the laptop and two monitors in my possession and I would be buying some sort of adapter anyway, what's my best course of action?

That model of Mac will take two 4K or one 5K display. And since those monitors are 2560 x 1440 (nowhere near 4K) then yes it should work just fine

Yes you can. But you will need a good USB C to Thunderbolt adapter (Adapter made by Apple should work).


How can I convert .ichat logs to text files? How do you convert the iChat transcript files that Messages creates into human-readable text files that can be opened without the Messages app?

For reference, these are the conversation files located in ~/Library/Messages/Archive.

Simply opening the .ichat files in a text editor includes a bunch of additional strings and hashes. Opening them in Messages and copy-pasting into a text editor works, but I'd prefer to automate the process if possible.

The files that Messages saves have an ichat file extension.

But from the command line you can inspect them to see they are actually binary plist files:

$ file transcript.ichat
transcript.ichat: Apple binary property list

Turns out, you can easily convert binary plist files into human-readable XML documents:

$ plutil -convert xml1 transcript.ichat

Now, when you run file again, you can see it's an XML file:

$ file transcript.ichat
transcript.ichat: XML document text

Go ahead—open it and see for yourself:

$ open transcript.ichat

This wouldn't be a perfect solution, but I notice that the messages are always between Ä_ and _$. You could write a script to extract all the text which started and ended with those characters. (any language with rexex support would do)