Why when I wake my new iMac from Sleep, I have to scrape away a layer of screensaver or Lion linen to log in? I have a strange problem. I am very good with Macs and all Apple products, but this one has me stumped.

I have a new (4 months old) 27" iMac (2.7 GHz Intel Core i5) with Lion 10.7.2

and it works beautifully, but it does one thing that drives me crazy. After it has gone to Sleep, and I wake it up to use it, the screensaver pic or Lion Grey linen image stays on the screen and I have to scrub away some of it with my pointer/cursor to see the user login screen, almost like scratching away some frost to be able to see through my car's windshield in the winter.

What is causing this? And what can I do to get it to stop? I have had Macs forever and have never had this problem.

I see this same problem. I see it on both user accounts on my 2011 iMac when the screen saver has been active and the user is automatically logged out. If the user logs themselves out this isn't present.

I don't believe it's a problem, just a video driver quirk.

I am experiencing this exact problem (aka "video crash/corruption").
This appears to be a rather typical manifestation of vid card driver -vs- OS & graphic app(s) mapping conflict. (mine is ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB on 27" iMac 8GB running OSX Lion with latest updates)

So, the fix is wait til someone "blinks": either APPLE or AMD-ATI - and then download the new driver/OS "fix" from the respective site. As of this writing, don't yet see any.

Either that or get a new vid card with compatible drivers.

PS: The ubiquitous "reinstall OS..." will only waste your time if this is the cause.

One other possibility, especially with Lion not auto-installing some things such as new Java stuff and also the usual need for the update of "support apps" such as Adobe Shockwave  - in case the Lion screensaver & Login screen/util make use of these - would therefor necessitate downloading the updates for these direct from the publisher.

-Best Regards.


MacBook Pro Connects to Wi-Fi but not the Internet I am on a MacBook Pro 2012 running macOS 10.11.

Recently, I have been having a problem with my Wi-Fi. Specifically, whenever I disconnect from one Wi-Fi network and attempt to connect to another in a different location, I get no internet. The signal says I am fully connected to the new network, but I cannot access the internet.

Restarting the computer solves the problem, but it is a pain to restart the computer every time I want to connect to a different network as I travel with my computer a lot.

I recently installed VPN software and suspect this may be the root of the problem because I never had this problem before the VPN.

Can anyone give me some ideas to fix this?

Seamus is right, it seems an issue related to network and not your MacBook Pro, though, you could execute  network diagnostic Utility.

The Network Diagnostics utility will guide you through a series of questions and tests, based on  your ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to network configuration and DNS servers. Sometimes the utility is able to fix issues by itself , but,when it can’t, it usually provides lots of useful info regarding  the nature of the problem as well as to offer several suggestions in order to fix network issues.

regarding VPN, could you tell me if you use more IP at the same time ?

This is a network issue, not a Mac issue. If you have two Access Points (APs) rather than two different WiFi networks, you may be able to do this, but the APs must be configured properly. If they're two different WiFi networks, I'd rate your chances somewhere between slim and none.


Task Switcher moves to non-primary display on Mavericks-Catalina I'm running OS X on a computer with two displays that are not mirrored.

One of them is configured as the primary display using the menu bar location in Displays System Preference, pre-Mavericks style. (Although both displays actually have the menu bar.)

Problem: cmd + tab Task Switcher sometimes appears in secondary display instead of the primary. Once it starts appearing on the secondary display, it might soon move back to the primary, too.

Questions:

Why does this happen? I have seen it more than once but haven't yet figured out the pattern.
How to configure the task switcher to appear only on the primary display?

According to this similar question, How to choose on which display Application Switcher shows?, the behavior depends on which display has the dock. Follow-up variant question:

2'. How to configure the dock to appear only on the primary display?

This also happens on all later releases through at least Catalina.

I answered a similar question here - cmd-tab behavior on Mavericks with multiple displays

The Task Switcher does follow the Dock.  If the Dock is on screen 1, the Task Switcher will appear on screen 1.  If the Dock is on screen 3, the Task Switcher will appear on screen 3.  Etc.

To make your Dock appear on a screen you can use a couple of methods.

Method 1 - Move your mouse to the bottom of the desired display.  Don't stop once you reach the bottom of the display though, try to move it further down, as if you're pushing down on the bottom of the display with your cursor.  This action tells the Dock to move to this display.  This is temporary however, meaning the Dock will stay on this display until you perform this action on another display or reboot your Mac.

Method 2 - This will change the default starting point for your Dock.  In System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement you can drag the menu bar from one display to another in this windows display icons.  See the attached picture for reference.  This alters the default preference to always show the Dock on the desired display, the one you drag the menu bar to in this preference pane, when you boot and/or login to your user account.  You can still use method 1 to temporarily change the Dock's location but upon a reboot it will return to the display specified here.

None of the above methods worked for me, but I tried unchecking and re-checking

Dock >  Automatically hide and show the dock

and it seemed to fix it for me.  Task switcher is back to the correct screen.


Skip OSX Beta Update From reading some comments, it looks like OS X 10.11 "El Capitan" Beta 3 breaks some aspects of Java that work in Beta 2. Is there a way to skip Beta 3, but still be notified when Beta 4 comes out, i.e. not opt out of the beta program?

Yes. You get prompted to install each build, so don't click for beta 3. Once 4 arrives, you'll likely have to first jump to 3 and then jump to 4.

This is documented at http://openradar.appspot.com/22307567

Your comment about not opting out is also confusing - I'm not sure how that relates to your ability to choose whether to install a specific update.

You should just be able to install Beta 4 when it comes out. I don't think you have to be running Beta 3 in order to install it.


How do I disable volume/brightness popup? This is the volume pop up. How do I remove it? It's highly annoying when it appears when playing a movie

Like many things interface-y, there's a Terminal command for that. Excellent explanation already exists.


Why is Safari asking for local items keychain? Recently, after opening safari on my macbook air, it began asking for the password to my local items keychain. Immediately this raises a red flag, as this never happened before and seems not entirely unlikely to be some form of malware. Is this actually a security risk or is this something benign?

Benign, probably.  This is related to iCloud Keychain.. it will take the 'local' keychain (called "login") and rename it to Local Items.  Then it'll upload the items that it can to iCloud and call that "iCloud".


Can I install OSX Safari 5.1 for one user and Safari 5.05 for another user - same CPU? I'm running OSX 10.6.8 with Safari 5.01 with my main user account, which is an admin account.
I would like to do some testing with Safari 5.1 before I fully commit to it.

Can I install Safari 5.1 in another user account (non-admin) and keep the Safari 5.05 functional in my admin account?
Can I just install it in the ~/Applications directory of the non-admin user?

The person behind Multi-Safari has documented the procedure to create a Safari application with a self-contained WebKit framework here.

Basically it involves duplicating the Safari application, opening the contents and creating a Frameworks folder inside, copying the Framework from /System/Library/Frameworks and then performing some jiggery-pokery to get the application to prefer to use the self-contained framework over the one in the Library folder.

(I decided not to copy his instructions word for word, as his website didn't use Creative Commons.)

No, I don't think so. Reason is that Safari updates replace the whole webkit framework which is a part of OS X, so you can only have one version at a time.


Create a new document type? I have some PDF files that I want to open in preview, and others that I want to open in Acrobat. It would be nice if I could just set up that acrobat files with a different extention, say ".apdf" and have the mac automatically open anything with .apdf with acrobat, and anything with .pdf with preview.

But that doesn't seem to work, because I think that the filetype is actually part of the file, not just the filename...

any ideas?

Select the file in Finder, then get info (cmd-i), and change the file extension (under name and extension) to something that is not used by other files.

Then, near the bottom of the get info window click "Open With" and select the app you need, i.e. Adobe Acrobat, by browsing through your application list.  Then, at the bottom of that sub-pane click the 'change all' button.  This will direct Acrobat to open all files with the extension you chose.

While renaming a file on the desktop usually doesn't change its extension (filetype) even if you try to, you can change the name and extension in the Get Info screen. Just two-finger click (or right-click) on any file, hit Get Info, and type in any name and extension you want in the Name and Extension field of the window that appears.

Problem solved.

tl;dr: Get Info the file and change its filetype there.


Permanently saving a cookie in ios8 Is there a way to permanently save a cookie in ios8?

So I can clear every other cookie and browsing data but that cookie?

My banking makes me confirm the computer/phone I'm using through email and code, I have to do this each time, only if the cookie is deleted.

I'm using the iPhone 6 no jailbreak.

No.  There is no way to do this through the standard user interface.  Sorry.  I can understand why you might want to do this, but the reality is that -- for pragmatic reasons -- software designers often need to keep it simple and avoid features that only a tiny fraction of their user base will use.

This let's you delete individual cookies, not a direct answer to your question but hope it helps -

http://osxdaily.com/2012/06/10/delete-site-specific-cookies-ios/

Regards


username different in Terminal and System Preferences I am new to Mac.

Recently I realized something for usernames.

When I type whoami in Terminal. It returns apple. However in System Preferences>Users and Groups" there is only one user and it says "sinan". (I am suspecting this could be the real name not the username)

Shouldn't be both the same?

Can I change the username in the terminal? Would that affect anything on the system (Lion)?

In Terminal the whoami displays your Short Name. This Short Name is also found as the name of your Home directory.

When you go into System Preferences and look at the user on the left it displays your Full Name.

Mac OS X does not let you easily change your Short Name, but you can change your Full Name from System Preferences.

Refer to this knowledge base from Apple if you wish to change your Short Name.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1428

To change the short name, follow these steps:

Open System Preferences.
Select Users & Groups.
Click the lock to make changes and enter your password.
Right click or two-finger click on your user and select Advanced Options.
Finally, change Account Name and reboot.

This will allow you to change your short name from settings without having to use a separate Admin account


Syncing non-Amazon purchased eBooks between Kindle, iPad, and iPhone I have an Amazon Kindle Keyboard, an iPhone, and an iPad.

I have purchased a load of eBooks from the publisher, O'Reilly, and have downloaded them on to the Kindle via USB.

I note these do not show up in my Kindle account on the Amazon website, and nor do they show up on my iPhone's or iPad's Kindle apps.

Is it possible to put non-Amazon eBook purchases into my Kindle account so they show up on all my devices?

You can do this depending on the file type. Install Amazon's Send to Kindle for Mac. It's a free app that lets you send your personal documents to your Kindle devices and Kindle iOS reading apps from your Mac.

You can send using drag and drop, or from the Finder, or from other Mac apps via the "Send to Kindle" option in the Print menu. You can also choose which devices and apps you want to send to.

The documents you send must be one of these file types:

Microsoft Word (.DOC, .DOCX)
PDF (.PDF)
TXT (.TXT)
RTF (.RTF)
JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
GIF (.GIF)
PNG (.PNG)
BMP (.BMP)
MOBI (.MOBI - used for eBooks)

If your file doesn't meet these requirements, you can always use a tool like Calibre to convert it to a compatible type.

When uploading .MOBI eBooks these need to be DRM free.

There's more info on using the app on Amazon's site.

It seems Kindle exclusively supports purchased ebook sync as Amazon won't auto sync every sideloaded book. Things are quite different on iPad and iPhone as iBooks supports purchased & non-purchased book sync. However, you must hope to sync between
your Kindle and apple device.

Here is a guide exactly concerning how to sync the furthest page among various OS & devices, which does not suit you well but might be of help more or less.


runaway distnoted process Sometimes I see a distnoted process suddenly spin up and chew up 100% CPU (on one core) and a ton of memory, often in the neighborhood of 1.5G or so. This happens a few times a day, starting a month or so ago.

The command line is /usr/sbin/distnoted agent, and it's started by launchd, neither of which help much. It's usually been running for somewhere between 4h and 24h before it spins up and pegs the CPU.

Web searches say distnoted manages notification delivery, and lots of other people report the same problem with it, but I haven't yet found a fix. Some people find that closing a culprit application (e.g. Skype) stops it, but I haven't found a culprit on my machine yet. I'm usually only running a few apps: Emacs (24.2 from Homebrew), Firefox, Adium, and Dash.

I'm on Mavericks on a late 2012 13" Retina MBP. Thanks in advance!

Update:

I've turned on distnoted logging in the system log by touching /var/log/do_dnserver_log, but it doesn't help much. I see lines like these (uid 501 is me, 89 I haven't found yet):

distnoted[80011]: # distnote server agent  absolute time: 48754.144787848   civil time: Wed Nov 20 10:52:03 2013   pid: 80011 uid: 501  root: no
distnoted[20]: # distnote server daemon  absolute time: 2.808112262   civil time: Tue Nov 19 09:52:24 2013   pid: 20 uid: 0  root: yes
distnoted[444]: # distnote server agent  absolute time: 16.656997509   civil time: Tue Nov 19 09:52:38 2013   pid: 444 uid: 501  root: no
distnoted[1271]: # distnote server agent  absolute time: 52.518265717   civil time: Tue Nov 19 09:53:14 2013   pid: 1271 uid: 89  root: no
distnoted[689]: Interruption - exiting now.

I've also run sudo dtruss -p PID on a spun-up distnoted process, and it spews lines like this:

kevent64(0x3, 0x7FFF7C3FD130, 0x1)       = 1 0
workq_kernreturn(0x20, 0x0, 0x1)         = 0 0
workq_kernreturn(0x20, 0x0, 0x1)         = 0 0
kevent64(0x3, 0x7FFF7C3FD130, 0x1)       = 1 0
workq_kernreturn(0x20, 0x0, 0x1)         = 0 0
workq_kernreturn(0x20, 0x0, 0x1)         = 0 0
kevent64(0x3, 0x7FFF7C3FD130, 0x1)       = 1 0
workq_kernreturn(0x20, 0x0, 0x1)         = 0 0
__disable_threadsignal(0x1, 0x0, 0x0)    = 0 0
__disable_threadsignal(0x1, 0x0, 0x0)    = 0 0
__disable_threadsignal(0x1, 0x0, 0x0)    = 0 0
kevent64(0x3, 0x7FFF7C3FD130, 0x1)       = 1 0
workq_kernreturn(0x20, 0x0, 0x1)         = 0 0
...

I've seen this too.  Emacs 24.3.1, Mavericks 10.9.

I've found that the distnoted process calms down within seconds after I quit out of Emacs.

I've filed an Emacs bug here: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.bugs/80836

Peter Buckley is right, I'm wrong.   I hate it when that happens.

Don't remove distnoted, the next boot will be no fun at all.

wrong> I took a more sledgehammer approach
wrong>
wrong>    sudo mv /usr/sbin/distnoted /usr/bin/distnoted.unwanted
wrong>
wrong> This is a work machine and I have no interest in sync'ing with iTunes.


macOS Catalina still uses bash as the default shell I'm on the latest public beta of macOS Catalina and it's supposed to use zsh as the default shell and it even shows that it is pointing to zsh in the users settings but whenever I open a new terminal window it says:

and even when I run that specified command, it says: no changes made

What do I do?

Turns out the terminal app has its own settings for which shell to use.
I had to go to terminal preferences and change the option for Shells open with to Default login shell:

New user accounts will be created with zsh as the default shell. Existing accounts will keep whatever settings they already have in place.


Trimforce on third party SSD disables keyboard and touchpad Specs: MBP 15" Mid 2010 i7 8gb ram
SSD: Sandisk PLUS 240GB SATA3
OS: macOS Sierra 10.12.1

Brand new SSD. Fresh install of macOS Sierra with the latest update 10.12.1.

When using sudo trimforce enable it enables successfully and reboots the machine. After the reboot during the first 20-30 seconds built-in keyboard and trackpad stop responding and they never recover back. The only fix is to disable trim: sudo trimforce disable.

When trim is disabled everything works absolutely fine - no issues with keyboard nor trackpad.

What could cause such behaviour?

a. Trim is not really necessary on modern SSD's. GarbageCollection works pefectly fast when there is enough free space, say 20% or more.
b. Do not use Trim when the SSD has not a modern Marvel controller (never install trim on a SSD with Sandforce controller.
The new Sandisk SSDs have a Marvel controller, I do not know what controller is in the Sandisk Plus.


macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg doesn't exist on my system I am trying to install gem packages.

I am missing the macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg file from /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/. I found the link to download the .pkg, but I need an Apple Developer account, which costs $100 a year.

Is there anywhere on my system besides /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/ that this file can be found? If not, is there a source where I don't have to pay $100? I just want to install a gem! I did try to use the locate command by the way.

Please consider using Homebrew to install rbenv instead of using system Ruby. Then configure it to your liking and get the gems you need. Please see this Homebrew, Ruby, and Gems article for details.

To install Homebrew, if you have not yet, or if you had trouble with it, please follow this Install homebrew on MacOS Mojave  article or find a similar for your version of MACOS. The important thing is to agree to Command Line Tools License Agreement that may popup (or stay hidden?) in the middle of the install, and may prevent you from finishing the install.


Set an alert for an event in a subscribed calendar in iCal My meetup.com account allows me to subscribe to an iCal calendar that displays all meetups that I have RSVP'd "yes" to.

All of the events appear as expected, but none of them have an alert setting (e.g., display message 2 hours before).

Is there a way to set an alert for events in a read-only subscribed calendar?

My workaround, annoying as it is, is to copy the subscribed event to my main calendar and set my alerts from the copy.

You can Control click on the calendar in iCal and go to Get Info and enable 'Ignore Alerts'. I'm not sure if this preference syncs with the iPhone too, but it certainly works on the Mac.


How exactly does an App Store developer add support for earlier versions of iOS? I just recently published my first iOS app to the App Store, but I want it to support devices with older iOS versions, and would like to confirm how to add that support before I do something that might mess things up.

On testing downloading from the App Store, I discovered that having left the iOS Deployment Target setting to the latest iOS version (currently 13.2), seems to mean that only users with the latest version of iOS on their devices are allowed to actually download the app.

I have a version 1.0.1 targeting iOS 13.2 on the store.

I think what I need to do is:

Build another archive targeting iOS 12.0 with a higher version number (required to upload after the previous one) and post it to the store.
And if I also want to support iOS 11.0, add another archive built for that with a higher version number, and upload that too.
Then make sure they're all listed as available under App Store Connect -> my app -> Pricing and Availability -> Last-Compatible Version Settings.

Is that all I have to do? Is it going to mess something up that the older iOS targets will have higher version numbers of my App?

It doesn't mess something up that you have newer version numbers that support older iOS targets than older version numbers. That's perfectly alright.

Remember that the Deployment Target is the minimum version of iOS that user's need to have.

The optimal way to do what you want is to set the deployment target to iOS 11, and then in your app conditionally use features for iOS 12 and iOS 13 depending on their availability.

This means that you can compile one single archive that contains a single app that will install on iOS 11, iOS 12 and iOS 13, and will offer different functionality depending on the iOS version on the user's device.

If you're using Swift for example, it could look something like this:

if #available(iOS 13, *) {
  // new stuff
} else {
  // old stuff
}

If you build and upload with bytecode enabled Apple can generate the various IPA files for all the target devices and operating system versions.


Finder / spotlight / mail search not working For the second time in a relatively short period I am having issues with the search function on my macbook.

Whether in spotlight, Mail app, or Finder search results return nothing. If I reboot the search works fine again. Unfortunately this now seems to be a recurring problem.
It's also a recent problem that I never had before, first noted it a few weeks ago.

Macbook on macOS Sierra 10.12.3.

Any one has this experience? What could it be? How can I prevent it or fix it, without having to restart everytime?

-- edit --

Following the feedback in the comments, I ran Disk Utility. Disk utility indicates there are errors but doesn't seem to repair them. Final message in DU:
"file system check exit code is 8"
I have already tried to reindex Spotlight, that didn't solve the problem.

I can also confirm that if you run out of disk space Apple Mail spotlight can become unusable.  My solution is slightly left field but has the advantage of being utterly reliable - rather than trying to rebuild OSX spotlight or force mail to reindex mail, I instead archive mail into EagleFiler (https://c-command.com/eaglefiler/).  EagleFiler maintains its own separate search index so is unaffected by system spotlight issues which I find difficult and time consuming to resolve.   Double clicking a mail message in EagleFiler will open it (and any attachments) in Mail.


Keyboard shortcut for toggling between Fn and F keys Is there a keyboard shortcut for toggling between Function and classic F keys?

Depending on what you're trying to do, you may be able to cut out the keyboard shortcuts altogether and completely automate this.  KeyRemap4MacBook allows you to set key re-mappings based on what application you're currently using.

I am using a setting that switches F1 through F12 to standard Function keys whenever I'm using RDC (Windows Remote Desktop).  Any other time they operate like their icons (brightness, volume, play, etc).

This can be done natively with no 3rd party software needed by opening System Preferences -> Keyboard, and then check/uncheck the box that says "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys". If checked, the keys act as F keys, if unchecked, they act as the system control keys, such as screen brightness, volume controls, etc. (I can't think of a better way to describe them).
Source:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204436


How to get the fully resolved path of a symbolic link in Terminal? I have a tangled mess of python installations on my laptop.  I was looking at the executables in /usr/local/bin and they are all symbolic links to ../../../Library......

There's some weird behavior surrounding this.  If I do ls -lhaG I see ---> and the relative path to the right of the symlinks:

lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    69B Dec  7 22:29 python3 -> ../../../Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.1/bin/python3

However, I can't seem to get any of the command line tools to resolve that path and display the actual path to python3.  I've found some tidbits here and there regarding use of pwd -P and the find utility to do this.  The problem is that these don't seem to work on OS X the way that people describe them working on linux (i.e. outputting the full path to the symbolic link).  They just print the symbolic links path for me:

FantasticMrFox:bin robert$ pwd -P python3
/usr/local/bin
FantasticMrFox:bin robert$ find `pwd -P` -name python3
/usr/local/bin/python3

Any ideas on what's going on here?

I think that pwd -P and readlink are going to be your friends for this task.

"How can I get the behavior of GNU's readlink -f on a Mac?" is a handy resource.

pwd -P only works if you're inside the symlink directory:

14:07:13 jason@mac ~ $ cd bin
14:08:08 jason@mac bin $ pwd -P
/Users/jason/Applications

readlink works by specifying the target (thus it can be used against files):

14:09:03 jason@mac ~ $ readlink bin
Applications

14:09:34 jason@mac ~ $ readlink /var
private/var

The output of readlink appears to be relative to the parent of the specified target.

Ex: The parent of /var is /, so private/var is correct, relative to /. Per my above example of bin -> Applications, both are in my Home Directory, no matter where I run it, the output is the same.

You may use readlink -f. It recurses through all the links. Suppose the link is to a path that is further a link. You would like to have the final absolute path.


Keys not registering on the iPhone while typing fast, does it happen to you or just me? I've tried this on all major OS versions of the iPhone, and on an iPhone 3G and 4. It's been around for at least a year.

I've noticed that when I'm typing really fast (over 70 wpm) on a portrait keyboard, sometimes a key will not register as being touched. I think what's happening behind the scenes is that the fingers are moving so fast that it thinks that it's the same finger that moved from one side of the keyboard to the other in a dragging motion. (Normally when you drag a key, it won't send the first key you were on and will only send the last key you released on.)

This only happens when you are typing a word where the letters alternate between the left and right fingers such that both are touching the screen at the same time. One word that it happens on is the word with where the t does not get registered and you end up with wih.

Here's how it's supposed to work:

You press your left thumb down on the t, the popup appears showing that you're going to send a t, a click sound plays. Note: the finger hasn't released the t yet, and the t hasn't been sent yet.
You press your right thumb down on the h, the t is sent, the popup appears showing that you're going to send an h, the click sound plays.
If you move your left thumb, around the keyboard, nothing happens since it's considered a dead touch (my terminology). You must release this finger before it will register again. When it is released, nothing happens. Again, this is correct behavior.
When you release your right thumb on the h, the h is sent.

What I believe it is registering when the bug happens is the following:

It detects a tap down on the t, plays a sound, shows the t popup, but doesn't send it yet.
It detects that the finger has moved to the h, and shows the h popup.
It detects that your finger was released, and it sends the h key.

Notice how in the second scenario the t key was never sent and that it thinks that it's one finger rather than two. Notice, also, that in the first scenario you hear two click sounds and in the second, you only hear one. This is actually the way I know when the bug happens, by listening for missed click sounds.

Although the example I gave with the word with may seem like it's much more likely since the t and h keys are very close by, this is actually not the case, and it frequently happens even with letters that are on opposite sides of the keyboard, such as n and d.

Note that it never happens when I type slow, since I believe touches are processed much more accurately when they aren't being sent fast. This bug doesn't happen too often (e.g. 1-5% of the time), but it's still annoying.

I'm wondering if this is a known bug or not. Has anyone else noticed this behavior? Before reporting it to Apple, it would help if I knew if other people have this issue too.

I don't know that I would classify this as a bug.  In OS X, Apple has the Key Repeat Rate setting in the Keyboard preference pane which is a similar idea.  Apple currently provides no way to adjust the speed at which key press (more correctly, release) events are registered globally in iOS.

The ability to type over 70 wpm on the portrait iPhone keyboard is something most of us are unable to achieve, so it's unlikely it would be addressed by Apple.

I have this issue. I searched for this exact description to see if other people were experiencing this problem.

Using iPhone typing test - http://www.iphonetypingtest.com/test.html I got a best score of around 62 wpm. Some of that may be due to failed autocorrect (a gripe for another day).

I'm fairly sure I lift my thumbs from the screen clearly so I'm not actually dragging my thumb.

The biggest issue is when it doesn't register punctuation - a comma, say - and then I "spacebar" to get back to the alpha screen and it types numbers!


How to sync iCloud cal with Exchange I use an Exchange server for work email and calendar, and I use an iCloud/iCal calendar at home and freelance business.

I want to sync all my iCloud calendar items - not contacts, email or anything else.

How can I do this?

The two services are not designed to easily merge with one another. There are numerous syncing tools available, but when you have multiple sync services interacting with each other (in this case: iCloud, middle man service & Exchange are each their own sync service) you dramatically increase the chance of serious sync corruptions.

As your goal is to see all of your calendars everywhere, I recommend setting up both services on all of your devices. You will want to use the following apps, depending on platform, for an ideal experience and visibility to both calendars:

Mac: use Apple Calendar (formerly, iCal). See this guide for setting up both account types.
PC: use Outlook. See this guide for setting up iCloud in Outlook. See this guide for setting up Exchange accounts in Outlook.
iOS: See this guide for setting up iCloud. See this guide for setting up Exchange.

There really isn't any need to sync the Exchange and iCloud calendars together. All you have to do is add both calendars to iCal, iOS or on the Mac, and you will see all of those events.


What's a good XML viewer/editor for Mac OS X? I use XML Editor from XMLmind for editing/viewing XML file in Mac.

It's not bad, but I expect an XML editor for Mac. What options do I have including the commercial/free software?

OS X Software for Editing XML

EditX (commercial)
oXygen (commercial)
XML Edita (commercial)
XMLMate (free/open source
plugin) for TextMate (shareware)
XMPlify (commercial)

You can try all in one JSON viewer or all in one XML viewer.


How to turn off all animations on OS X Is it possible to turn off all animations on OS X?

I have only enabled the first four of these, but here are all hidden preferences for disabling animations I have found.

# opening and closing windows and popovers
defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

# smooth scrolling
defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool false

# showing and hiding sheets, resizing preference windows, zooming windows
# float 0 doesn't work
defaults write -g NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001

# opening and closing Quick Look windows
defaults write -g QLPanelAnimationDuration -float 0

# rubberband scrolling (doesn't affect web views)
defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false

# resizing windows before and after showing the version browser
# also disabled by NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001
defaults write -g NSDocumentRevisionsWindowTransformAnimation -bool false

# showing a toolbar or menu bar in full screen
defaults write -g NSToolbarFullScreenAnimationDuration -float 0

# scrolling column views
defaults write -g NSBrowserColumnAnimationSpeedMultiplier -float 0

# showing the Dock
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0

# showing and hiding Mission Control, command+numbers
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0

# showing and hiding Launchpad
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -float 0
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -float 0

# changing pages in Launchpad
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration -float 0

# at least AnimateInfoPanes
defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true

# sending messages and opening windows for replies
defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool true
defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true

This answer, wrapped up as a shell script that allows you to toggle between states.

examples

$ animations_osx.sh
animations disabled - reboot may be required

$ animations_osx.sh
animations enabled - reboot may be required

$ animations_osx.sh OFF
animations disabled - reboot may be required

$ animations_osx.sh ON
animations enabled - reboot may be required

animations_osx.sh

FILE=/tmp/__ez_file_$(date +%s)

function show_help()
{
  IT=$(CAT <<EOF

  usage: {ON|OFF}

  enables or disables animations in osx.
  if you don't pass any arguments, it'll toggle between enabled and disabled.

  e.g.

  ON  => All animations are enabled
  OFF => All animations are disabled
  )
  echo "$IT"
  exit
}

if [ "$1" == "help" ]
then
  show_help
fi

# returns the opposite of the current state for easy toggling
function getNewState()
{
  defaults read com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration  &> $FILE
  VAL=$(cat $FILE)
  rm $FILE
  if [ "$VAL" == "0" ]
  then
    echo "ON"
  else
    echo "OFF"
  fi
}

if [ -z "$1" ]
then
  OP=$(getNewState)
else
  OP=$1
fi

if [ "$OP" == "OFF" ]
then
  defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false
  defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool false
  defaults write -g NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001
  defaults write -g QLPanelAnimationDuration -float 0
  defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false
  defaults write -g NSDocumentRevisionsWindowTransformAnimation -bool false
  defaults write -g NSToolbarFullScreenAnimationDuration -float 0
  defaults write -g NSBrowserColumnAnimationSpeedMultiplier -float 0
  defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0
  defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0
  defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0
  defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -float 0
  defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -float 0
  defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration -float 0
  defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true
  defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool true
  defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true
  echo "animations disabled - reboot may be required"
  exit;
fi

if [ "$OP" == "ON" ]
then
  defaults delete -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled &> $FILE
  defaults delete -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled &> $FILE
  defaults delete -g NSWindowResizeTime &> $FILE
  defaults delete -g QLPanelAnimationDuration &> $FILE
  defaults delete -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding &> $FILE
  defaults delete -g NSDocumentRevisionsWindowTransformAnimation &> $FILE
  defaults delete -g NSToolbarFullScreenAnimationDuration &> $FILE
  defaults delete -g NSBrowserColumnAnimationSpeedMultiplier &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-delay &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations &> $FILE
  defaults delete com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations &> $FILE
  rm $FILE
  echo "animations enabled - reboot may be required"
  exit;
fi

show_help


How to install Ubuntu on a 1st gen Apple TV? I want to install Ubuntu on my 1st gen Apple TV.

How should I go about doing this, using as little third-party software as possible?

Most of the time when installing Linux on the Apple TV, you are doing it in order to unlock more capabilities when it comes to video playback and options; I assume this is what you are looking for. If you follow these recently updated instructions everything should go fine. Just be careful to read them thoroughly.
They will walk you through two different options: running from a USB stick and not touching the Apple TV hard drive, or installing Ubuntu (CrystalBuntu) on the Apple TV itself. I would highly recommend the first: In the case you don't like it, you can just power off, unplug the USB and, then restart; everything would be back to normal. It has both Mac and PC/Linux instructions in there depending on what you have to work with.

Install Instructions

I know that the link says things about XBMC but it is for installing Ubuntu on it so that you can run XBMC too, its a very good media player option. It involves installing Crystalbuntu, a port of Ubuntu with media player options using XBMC.

Here is a nice how to video as well that goes over the booting from a USB stick option:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJqyr0QRRvU

UPDATED

I understand that you want to do an install that will leave you with a desktop/server environment, which is also possible.

There are also a few other different options for installing a regular version of Linux, like Ubuntu 8.04 and even Arch Linux, with these, you will have a regular desktop and such, as you can see in this example video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko0cwbGsKHU

This process, discussed here on Ask Different, goes over the way a bootloader can be copied and used to boot most versions of linux:

What Linux variants can be installed on an 1st generation Apple TV?

The direct page link is here:

http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/InstallingLinux

This page, has talks about the atv (Apple Tv) Bootloaders and how to use them.

For simpler install though you can download and run there is the following link, which will install the OS of your choice on an USB Drive and do all the heavy lifting can be found here:

http://stmlabs.com/2011/03/28/crystalhd-released/

Here is a direct link to the installer download page with more instructions:

http://www.stmlabs.com/projects/crystalhd-for-appletv/

Also, if you google search "Install Linux on an Apple TV 1st Gen" you can find loads of helpful articles too.

I hope that this helps you out.

Links are down. I made a mirror: atv.dc7ia.eu

Read the readme.txt!

Edit: I changed the scripts to download from my server. There will be no updates. Use the Ubuntu updates.

Edit2: I refer to the links to stmlabs.com @de_an777 posted. The script crystalhd installs Ubuntu on your HD or USB drive. I've mirrored the files on my server and edited all the links, so the script works again. I were able to get Ubuntu booting on my Apple TV, after 2h of link editing and upload work.

DC7IA


Grey login screen after enabling encryption After turning on encryption with FileVault on my MacBook Air with Mountain Lion my login screen went gray. Is there a way to go back to the default one?

The grey one

The default one

Nope, you can’t. When FileVault is enabled, the disk needs to be decrypted on every boot. As the computer can’t access files on the disk, It generates a simple login screen so that you can enter your password and decrypt the disk. This UI is hardcoded into the firmware of your computer, and can’t be changed.
Source: https://discussions.apple.com/message/15823532#15823532

When your Mac first starts up, EFI-boot takes over to decide what to do. It either

continues to bring up the system to the typical OSX login screen, which is managed by OSX's system preferences, or

it starts a special EFI pre-boot where it displays the FV2 unlock screen with the icons of designated OSX accounts approved to unlock the disk. Once you log on, the EFI unlock sequence carries forth your credentials, performing a single signon.

That's worked great for me:

OS X 10.8.2 included one important change to Apple’s fdesetup FileVault 2 management tool. fdesetup now has the authrestart verb, which allows a FileVault 2-encrypted Mac to restart and bypass the FileVault 2 pre-boot login screen. Instead, the Mac reboots as a unlocked system and goes straight to the regular login window.
When you run sudo fdesetup authrestart, it asks for a password or recovery key. The password must be an account that has been enabled for FileVault 2 (i.e. an account that shows up at the FV2 pre-boot login screen.) After that, it puts an unlock key in system memory and reboots. On reboot, the reboot process automatically clears the unlock key from memory.

Source


Serial Number from Terminal I am trying to find the serial number on my Mac through terminal, but am getting the error seen in the image below. If anyone can help me, that would be great, but I understand if you've never seen this error, as I never have. I am connecting to the Mac via Reflection (the ssh app).

Last login: Tue Oct 25 17:08:24 2016 from 192.168.10.100
$ system_profiler |grep "Serial Number (system)"
2016-10-25 17:11:37.247 system_profiler[37298:1384741] There was an error parsing the Info.plist for the bundle at URL <0x7fb91414ce10>: NSCocoaErrorDomain - 3840
$

Have you tried looking at the I/O Kit Registry?

Here is a link to the man page for ioreg provided by apple.

Try this command to reveal the system's serial number:

ioreg -l | grep IOPlatformSerialNumber

This prints just the serial number without the rest of the formatting.

ioreg -l | awk '/IOPlatformSerialNumber/ { split($0, line, "\""); printf("%s\n", line[4]); }'


Is there a way to setup an ad-hoc network without "losing" the device? Right now, when setting up an ad-hoc network, using the "Create Network" feature in OS X/macOS, the device creating the network is "lost" – meaning that it can't be used for normal internet connectivity anymore.

My question would be, if it's possible through some CLI utility or an app to create an ad-hoc network, but still be able to use the Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet?

In the early days of 802.11b, you could set a radio to either be in Access Point -> Station mode, or AdHoc, but not both simultaneously.  And, depending on the vendor, client devices, such as PCMCIA cards, couldn't be AP's without special firmware or software.

Nowadays, operating systems and chipset vendors have blurred the lines between infrastructure networks and adhoc to make tethering and home sharing easier.  Nevertheless, just as you can't connect to more than one SSID (wireless network) at a time, you can't host an SSID as an AP and join another one as a client.  Also, most client devices (computers, phones, and tablets) don't have the radio hardware necessary to be a repeater.

To do what you want, you'd need two WiFi adapters, one integrated and one USB, or an external device that acts as a WiFi-Ethernet bridge.

Nope, as far as I know you can do this with Ethernet but not with WiFi.


Does Time Machine support APFS? I just updated to macOS High Sierra. What's the best way to use Time Machine under Apple's new APFS file system. Should I use Disk Utility to convert my external Time Machine volume to APFS?

Time Machine supports APFS as a source and not a destination. You can't backup to an APFS destination disk and Time Machine will inform you that the disk needs to be HFS+ if you attempt to do this.

Right now, there's nothing you need to or should do. Your internal disk has been converted to APFS and your backup disk is still on HFS+, so Time Machine will function as it always has, and will continue to inherit previous backups despite the difference in format. On a future date when Time Machine supports APFS destinations, you can convert your backup disk.

According to Apple's web site:

  You don't need to change any Time Machine
  settings to back up APFS-formatted disks. Any Time Machine share
  points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP.

I wouldn't format your backup drive: it doesn't support APFS unless it is all flash. I would just try to do a Time Machine backup and let it worry about it. Since Time Machine backup are not image backups, I am assuming that the OS will handle the reading and writing of the backup records.


Tool to quickly hide/blur/redact text in screenshot? I’ve captured a screenshot and I want to share it (on Stack Overflow, actually), but I need to blur/hide out a couple words in the screenshot. Is there a tool to quickly do this?

Skitch can do this quickly. See?

Just click the blur button in the side bar and draw over your image to obscure things.

Please note that this app saves files to Evernote by default which can be a problem for sensitive content. You may want to disable it by not signing into your Evernote account or by making the following setting changes:

Set Sync -> Save New Skitch Notes to Evernote to Manual
Uncheck Sharing -> Automatically Share and Copy Link after creating new Skitch Notes

I use reducked.com - small webpage-tool for redacting images in a browser.

UPD:
TheBro21, that's a one task tool, their home page is a tutorial in 3 sentences:

and as a result:


How to use iPhone to send Bluetooth to a speaker playing the music from my PC HDD? I have a PC which has no bluetooth and want to play music this PC to a bluetooth speaker using my iPhone as the bluetooth sender.  PC and iphone could be connected via usb cable or wifi that is not a problem.

You can't use your iPhone as a receiver of music (either from wifi or cable) from your PC in the manner you appear to indicate.

However, if you have iTunes installed on the PC, you can use iTunes to access your music first.  Then, use the iPhone to access the music through iTunes.  Once you've got the music playing, you can output it to your BT speaker.  It's actually much simpler than it looks in print!

You would need to setup your devices to use Home Sharing.  Start by following the guide in this Apple Support page on Home Sharing.  All devices must be on the same network for this to work.

Here's another walk-through on how to set this up and it might be a little easier to follow.

The benefit of this setup is when you add more devices, like Apple TV or an iPad, they can also access this same music using Home Sharing.


Upgrade iPhone 5 from iOS 7 to iOS 8 I want to upgrade my iPhone 5 running iOS 7 to iOS 8. I dont want the current iOS 9 update in my device. Is there any way to update my phone to iOS 8 without iOS 9?

Yes this can be done you can download iOS firmware from http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/

Once it is downloaded keep it on your desktop. Now put your device in DFU mode. (You can learn it from youtube if you dont know how to put your device in DFU mode.) iTunes will popup telling you it has discovered a device in recovery mode. Now press shift on your keyboard and click on restore. iTunes will start restoring your device.

NOTE: you might get few iTunes errors during the restore.


How can I get the iPhone to "forget" certain words? The auto-complete features can be nice, but somewhere along the line my iPhone has learned some questionable language.  How can I get the iPhone to "forget" certain words from its auto-complete settings / dictionary?

It sounds like it used to be possible to manually edit the user dictionary, but unfortunately it isn't anymore.

Just a guess, but perhaps you can have it forget them the same way it learned them — when it suggests the word, try tapping on the small [x] next to the suggestion. If you do this a few times it may "forget" the word.

You can reset the dictionary entirely by going to Settings > General > Reset:

You can create a keyboard shortcut. Settings>General>Keybord>Text Replacement. This may work for a word or phrase you use frequently.  This may help in reprogramming the dictionary. It's an indirect way to edit the spell check function.


Is there a way to send a remote lock/unlock message to an iOS device with Cydia? I want to be able to trigger my iphone to unlock from a webserver. Is there a way to send a command over LAN to it to unlock using Cydia?

The only way I can think of doing this is by downloading Veency and a program that supports it, eg. VNC viewer


Searching Gmail from Mail.app doesn't work The search in iPhone's Mail.app doesn't find anything. The same problem exists on OS X.

When I search a word I usually get no results. It only works if the word is included in a recent email, let's say 1 or 2 weeks old.

Also, there is an option called "Search on the server". It never worked in the last 2 years.

Why is my search broken when using an Apple client to search Gmail?

The most likely suspect for this behavior would be in how you have mail settings configured. The mail account will only search as many messages as you tell it to pull down from the server. Go to settings, and then select "Mail, Contacts, Calendars."Scrolling down will reveal the different settings that you can configure for mail. One of them will be an option to let you change the number of emails that are pulled from your server. If you get a large number of emails, but the settings are only configured to store the most recent 100, then it would be reasonable to expect search to find only those items from the last couple of days. Depending on how far back you think that you will need to go on a regular basis, the number of emails that you will want to hold onto will vary greatly. So, you can easily adjust the number of emails that will be kept and will be able to be searched, but it will be up to you to determine this based on what you think your needs will be.

Search results will display time out indicates connection problem . Reconnect and browse.


Which free alternatives to Little Snitch can I use to block internet traffic per applications? Little Snitch can block internet traffic of a particular app. Can I do something similar without (paying) Little Snitch, either by using free alternatives or configuring the OS X firewall directly?

TCPBlock

  TCPBlock is a lightweight and fast application firewall … you can prevent selected applications on your computer from opening connections to the network.

TCPBlock is free and can be downloaded from MacUpdate, however TCPBlock doesn't appear to work with El Capitan and is no longer being updated.

PF Firewall

OS X comes with the PF firewall, which can be configured to block all connections to certain servers in all apps. Blocking all connections from a single app is not possible as far as I am aware without external software.

You can use IceFloor as a GUI for the PF firewall.

I think you can through the firewall as stated in this article:

Click the System Preferences icon in the Dock.
Click the Security icon.
Click the Firewall tab.
Click the Start button to turn on your firewall.
Click the Advanced button.
Click the Automatically Allow Signed Software to Receive Incoming Connections radio button to select it.

This enables the firewall. And, by default, virtually all incoming
TCP/IP traffic is blocked. You must enable each sharing method that
you want to be able to use. When you enable different sharing methods
from the Sharing pane in System Preferences (such as File Sharing or
FTP Access), you’ll notice that those types of traffic now appear in
the Firewall list. (In other words, when you turn on a sharing method,
the firewall automatically allows traffic for that sharing method,
which Snow Leopard calls a service.)
Click the up/down arrow icon to the right of any service to specify
whether the firewall should allow or block connections.
Sometimes, you might want to allow other traffic through your firewall
that isn’t on the firewall list of recognized services and
applications. At that point, you can click the Add button (which bears
a plus sign) to specify the application that your firewall should
allow. Snow Leopard presents you with the familiar Add dialog, and you
can choose the application that needs access.


Looking for Working Weather Dashboard Widget So the weather widget apple includes with macOS no longer works. It's been broken for a while now, I suspect it's never coming back. Especially since it was powered by Yahoo. Also Apple's "dashboard widget" directory hasn't been updated in 10+ years. So that's useless.

I'm looking for a simple little widget that will give me current conditions and a 7+ day forecast. Nothing complicated. But it is really useful and it's a bummer not having it.

I modified Apple's Dashboard widget to use an entirely different weather API. You can download it from https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/i-fixed-apples-broken-weather-dashboard-widget.2225715/.

You'll need to grab API keys from DarkSky and MapQuest and add them to the top of weatherParser.js inside the modified widget. This process is extensively documented in Widget's readme.

Alternately, you can also use the FairWeather widget.  It's not quite as pretty as Apple's widget, but it gets its weather data directly from the NOAA's servers, so I suspect it's less likely to break than something which pulls from a private company.

Sadly, the original download link is broken, so I uploaded it here: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/fair-weather

the weather widget seems not to work on my 10.13.6... lands in a infinite Validating loop...


How to keep mac awake while updating I am upgrading from mojave to big sur and need to know how to keep my mac awake during this time. the terminal command caffeinate did not work, after some time the screen display went blank as usual. Is there a way to prevent the mac from going to sleep? Also, If i went to System Preferences > Energy Saver > Battery and put "Turn Display Off After:" to never, will the update be able to override that when it needs to restart the computer after the update file has installed?
Thank you in advance

The easy way at the command line is to call software update.
softwareupdate -a -i -r

The command prevents sleep, checks for all updates and then installs them. If the install requires a reboot, that happens immediately as well once the install is done.

There is a free app called Caffeine which prevents sleep on the mac, google search for it.


Running custom software on an Airport Extreme base station? Is it possible to run custom software on an Airport Extreme base station?

I've read it has a MIPS processor inside. So, can one put some software compiled for MIPS (addtionally to the already present printing and file-sharing services) on a connected hard drive (or install it), and then run it in the base station?

I'm thinking about the possibility of running a torrent-client on the base station, or an FTP-server, or, perhaps, a Coda filesystem server, and the like.

Currently there is no way to jailbreak either an Airport Extreme or a Time Capsule.

Whilst they are probably in the same order of difficulty as jailbreaking as say an iOS device, no one has really spent any effort on doing so.

Personally I think this is probably for the following reasons:

limited target audience (low numbers of product in the world)
limited 3rd party development support

You can already ftp to it without hacking it.


Buy an iPad mini abroad I'm going to spend my holidays in New York and I would like to buy an iPad Mini 32GB Wi-Fi. (I'm from Italy)

However I talked with two guys at the Apple Store and they told me

The iPad is not going to work in Italy because of different processors. I don't believe it.
The iPad is going to work but the wireless device is different, hence you will have trouble in case of damage because the iPad bought in US is technically different from the one we sell in Italy.

Are 1 and/or 2 true?
Will I found problem with the warranty in case of need?

I've never heard of someone being refused AppleCare service at an Apple Retail store in Europe when the product was purchased in the US. Also, all 2012 mini Wi-Fi models are A1432 so you don't need to play a guessing game with LTE bands.

If you read the terms of the warranty, Apple is certainly in their rights to ask you to return the product to the country of sale for service since that is their standard practice. You are basically selecting the laws and customs that cover your warranty and perhaps giving up some rights since European law is different than US law in terms of consumer protection.

In reality, most countries that have Apple Retail presence have good coverage for US products whether you take it to a local authorized center or to Apple. You might have second thoughts if you lived somewhere where the local distributor expects to provide service to products it sold and not those you imported yourself.

As to the quotes - perhaps they were unfamiliar with WiFi bands and that Apple devices usually will reprogram the baseband for WiFi based on location and not point of purchase.

For WiFi model, You can buy it from Apple Store everywhere. Hardware should be the same. But for cellular model, you may send it back to US for repair.


How do I disable Chrome's two-finger back/forward navigation? In dev builds of Chrome, they've implemented, refined, and released two-finger swipes left/right in order to browse back/forward in the browser history. Unfortunately, you can accidentally trigger it while you're in the middle of a long down/up scroll, which needless to say occurs often.

I generally like the gesture, and things like Preview, Safari, and other application have implemented it much better, where you cannot blindly navigate back/forward so long as you have begun to scroll up/down.

How do I selectively disable two-finger back/forward navigation in Chrome?

I know its over a year later, but I had the same question, and then figured out the answer myself.

Open terminal and type:

defaults write com.google.Chrome AppleEnableSwipeNavigateWithScrolls -bool FALSE

Then restart Chrome.

Now you can have it enabled system wide, and just disabled for chrome. By the way, this works for any app, just replace com.google.Chrome with the bundle identifier of the target app.

If your interested in how it works, the AppleEnableSwipeNavigateWithScrolls is the global setting, that can be overwritten for any specified app.

Hope this helps someone in the future.

The only way I'm currently of is two disable two-finger page swiping system-wide, from the Trackpad section of System Preferences. I wait patiently for Chrome to either fix its implementation, or at least provide an app preference for disabling the feature.


A new macOS version exists, no update available from the App Store I recently reinstalled macOS on my MacBook Pro which is now on macOS 10.13.5, which isn't the latest version because I used an old macOS High Sierra installer. However, when I opened the Mac App Store to update to 10.13.6, it didn't show any updates. I thought it was an issue at Apple's side, so I downloaded the macOS 10.13.6 Combo Updater, but that didn't work either. It gave an error: "This volume doesn't meet the requirements for this update". Is my installation corrupted? If not, how can I fix it without another reinstall?

This is a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015). I have enabled FileVault after installing macOS and it is still encrypting (about 13 hours left).

Apparently macOS doesn't allow you to install macOS Updates while FileVault is encrypting, so it blocks every possible way of installing software updates. However, it is still possible to install macOS updates from an external flash drive since there is no encryption going on when you boot from an external device, thus allowing you to install the update. You will need to follow Apple's instructions on how to create and boot from an external macOS Install USB. The only thing you need to do different is before starting the macOS installer, open Disk Utility, select your disk and mount it. You will be prompted for your disk's password since it uses FileVault. After that, simply start the Installer and install macOS onto your main partition. It will not overwrite your existing installation. It will only replace essential system files with fresh ones, thus updating your system.

I had the same problem with MacOS High Sierra.

If you don't want to use a USB stick to port your OS there just fire up the App Store and search for the OS name (in my case was Catalina): then press GET and install it from there


Is it possible to add funds to a US iTunes store account with Paypal? I'm Korean and don't have a US address or credit card, but I want to buy content from the US iTunes store.

I have a PayPal account connected to a Korean bank. Is it possible to add funds to a US iTunes account with PayPal?

Yes, you can only use PayPal with iTunes US, and in that PayPal, you'll need to have a US bank account or have your locations and any credit cards/debit's on there will have to be located in the US as iTunes checks for that as well. It all has to be in the US, and cannot have any other bank or CC company for any other country.

Change your "store" in iTunes to Korea since that's where your bank is located. Your money will sit on your "account" not in that "country". Then change your store to the US store and tada, your in biz. It's completely LEGAL people trade cash like that all day long. But I do warn you to check exchange rates, the Korean currency doesn't equal the US currency value. Having an "address" just means the place your at now. ie apartment is fine, just no po boxes, I know several people that have used the local apple store as their "address". This is far from lying & it's none of Apple's biz anyway.


Setting Color Tags in iCloud Drive for iOS I am currently using iCloud Drive with my Mac and iPad. On the Mac, I am able to add color labels to documents and folders to better organize my files.

I am wondering if it is possible to add these kinds of labels and colors to documents and folders in iCloud from my iPad?

As far as I have found this is not possible using the iCloud Drive app for iOS.


Can't move files in root user desktop I logged in as the root user so that I could pull all the files from all users into one folder to then transfer to an external hard drive. I had no problem moving files to the root user desktop but trying to move, copy, or even delete files from the desktop results in a “preparing to move” dialog box that shows no progress even when trying to simply move an empty test folder.

I feel like this may be because of some error in permissions because the root user desktop is located in /macintosh hd/private/var/root/desktop/ and the private folder is hidden.

How do i get around this issue?

Not sure why it was happening but i found a work around using terminal “sudo mv ...” command to manually move the folders

I think you might run into a System Integrity Protection (SIP) problem:
disable sip: boot from recovery partition, open terminal, execute "csrutil disable", reboot -> try again.

Root accounts on macos are not the godmode (anymore) they are on other Unix style machines.


Tool for determining performance bottleneck I am using my early 2011 MacBook Pro for iOS development, Photoshop work, and the like, and it is at times quite sluggish. Is there a tool that I can just run for a day, and then look at the statistics it produces to identify the performance bottleneck?

I am considering either buying more RAM (I have 8 currently, would get 16) or an SSD (I currently have the stock HDD).

The tools I would use are:

Activity Monitor
Instruments (run from Xcode)
vm_stat 900
io_stat 900
top -u -s 900
sysdiagnose - shift+control+option+command+. (or run sudo sysdiagnose)

The two stat commands and top all run in a terminal window and snapshot 15 minute intervals of activity. The stat ones log the statistics. I'd run the sysdiagnose command sparingly, perhaps once at the start of the period, once when the OS seems exceptionally slow and once at the end.

The easiest to manage is Activity monitor and I'd focus on making sure nothing is occupying the CPU that you don't feel should be taking a lot of resources and the balance of RAM - what percentage is wired what percentage is wired+active.

The bottleneck of your system is HIGHLY specific to the application of your Mac. Here are some examples:

A video game rig is almost always bottled necked by the graphics
card, as video games don't require much disk access or CPU computing.
Casual use, like loading applications and files, is likely
bottlenecked by file access speed.
Development and A/V production requires a mix of most computer specifications, but there isn't an "automatic" application to determine it for you.

Here is how I would determine the bottleneck:

Take a look at your RAM usage. A nice free way to do so is opening Activity Monitor, right clicking the dock icon, and selecting "Show Memory Usage" under the "Dock Icon" sub-menu. If your RAM (excluding "inactive" memory) is frequently high (for example, 80%), then perhaps it'd be worth upgrading. If you only ever used half of your 8GB of RAM, adding on 8 more GB wouldn't impact performance.
Similarly, keep an eye on your disk activity (from activity monitor). Benchmark your Mac's HDD (so you learn it's Read/Write max speeds) and compare the disk activity you observe to the maximum capability of the drive. If you frequently hit the max, then perhaps it's SSD upgrade time.

I would recommend the SSD upgrade. Apart from the obvious file I/O speed boost, if you use too much memory, your SSD would make for much better swap space than your current HDD.


How do I get current location by using Google Map or Apple Map How do I get current location coordinate by using Google Map or Apple Map?

I want to copy and paste to email/whatsapp/waze.

I want some kind of this format. 3.1739161,101.984351

Anyone can help?

I've never understood why we couldn't get location coordinates from Apple Maps etc. Seems like such an obvious function.

However, you can use the default Compass app and it'll give you your current location at bottom of screen. See screenshot below for the format these appear in:

Otherwise you can also download dedicated GPS Location apps as well if you need different formats.

[EDIT]

Just thought I should add that tapping on the coordinates in the Compass app will then open the location in Apple Maps.

In apple or google map you can't... with google you can have it on desktop version


Using mv to rename files on terminal ended up with lost files I'm on macOS Mojave 10.14.4, on a APFS SSD. Last week some students delivered me some image files over an image processing assignment. I have an automated routine on Matlab to grade the assignments, but it only loads files with a specific ".jpeg" extension.

Rather than rewrite my routine, I usually just rename the files (a mess of ".jpg", ".JPEG", ".JPG") on terminal. I'm used to do that on my University issued linux desktop. But that day I had my MacBook Pro with me, so I got them with it.

Alas, my terminal command "mv *.jpg *.jpeg" returned with a no such file or directory error, so I left this task for later. Earlier today I got to work after a three day weekend and when I opened the folder, I realized that about half of the files were missing.

My guess is that the mv didn't "fail properly" and, based on some thing that I've already looked around, may have lost the data for good! My Time Machine is at home, so it never got to back up those files.

I have already looked for possibly hidden folders where the files might have ended up, but no luck. Does anyone has any idea where the files may have gone? Or if they are truly lost?

Att.

Osmar

If you have a directory/folder of JPEG files that have either a .jpg and or .JPG extension and you want to change the extension to .jpeg, then in Terminal, use the following compound command after changing directory cd ... to the directory containing the JPEG files:

for f in *.[jJ][pP][gG]; do mv -n "$f" "${f%.*}.jpeg"; done

Try completing your Time Machine backup. macOS uses the free space on your hard disk to do backups of changed/new files hourly and writes those to your backup disk when you connect to your Time Machine.

It's quite likely that if you do a Time Machine backup, then search for your missing files, you'll find them.

Good luck!


How long should it take to update to iOS 10.3? My iPhone and iPad show an update and I'd like to know how long this update takes.

Is this a quick update?

The update from iOS 10.2 to iOS 10.3 is a very large update under the hood, so it's not the typical update that is a quick download and quick restart. You'll likely need 10 minutes to check backup and 20-40 for the actual update (excluding download time of the update which depends on server load and network conditions).
You won't notice a ton of new features and changes like from iOS 6 to iOS 7, but the entire storage system that holds all your apps, photos, movies and files is changed to a newer filesystem format without losing any of your data. I believe the older devices skip this filesystem reformat (iPhone 5 for example) and they might be faster udpates.
The new APFS filesystem for 64 bit iOS hardware runs storage on iOS 10.3 instead of HFS+ which has been Apple's main format on both iOS and macOS for decades.

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893 iOS 10.3 changes

For most people, I would recommend the following:

If you don't normally update your apps, postpone this upgrade for two or three days. Instead, go to the App Store and apply all updates. If you haven't checked if your backups are good, please go to iCloud settings or connect to iTunes and make sure your backup is complete and recent.

If you do have recent backups and have been updating your apps in the last week, you should plan for 30 minutes to apply this upgrade since it runs a conversion step when the device restarts.

For many people, it might be best to schedule the update for the evening when the device is plugged in to power and connected to WiFi. These timing allow 5 minutes to download the installer - that’s the shortest portion of this update.

My iPhone 7 (256 GB) took 28 minutes to update
My iPad Air 2 (64 GB) took 32 minutes to update

i am updating py iphone 5s to ios 10.3.1. i have waited s long time because my favorite app did not work with this update. good part is this only take a max of 15 minutes to update and it frees up more storage!


Why won't Facetime ring when somebody calls me? My volume is turned up, it's not on mute, alarms and other things that make noise work, it's not set to "do not disturb" or anything like that. If I happen to have the iPad open when a Facetime call arrives I can see it, but it's silent and not ringing.  Facetime works fine except if somebody calls me it won't ring.

Go to ‘Settings’, then to ‘Do Not Disturb’ and make sure it is set to allow all calls from FaceTime.

Go to ‘Settings’, then ‘Sounds’, and make sure you have a ringtone for calls / FaceTime set.

Finally, make sure your iPad is not in Mute mode by swiping from bottom of the screen upwards and tapping the ‘Bell’ icon to disable it (or, if you have an older device, and you have ‘Mute’ set under ‘General / Use side switch to...’, switch the side switch on). Having Mute mode enabled will prevent the device making any sound when called.

Go into settings,notifications,FaceTime,sounds, then select your ring tone preference.


Can‘t update any iOS Apps: “If you have an Apple ID, sign in with it here“ Edit: I did a factory reset and it worked. Very annoying bug...
I haven‘t been able to update apps in months. Whenever I click on update, the App Store prompts me with:

“If you have an Apple ID, sign in with it here.“

Not only am I already logged into my account (yes, it is the same account that I used to download the app), there is literally no way I can log in with this prompt, since it asks for only a password and not an email + password. Whatever I type in, I get “Your Apple Id or Password is incorrect.“
Here‘s what I‘ve tried:

Updating iOS

Restarting iPhone several times

Logging in and out of different Apple Accounts

Does anyone have any ideas on what I should do? Anything I’m missing?
I haven‘t really cared much but now WhatsApp is forcing me to update and refuses to support my version so I literally cannot use it. I also don‘t want to delete and reinstall it because I would lose my chat and document histories.

To anyone having the same problem, the only thing that worked for me was doing a full reset.

Why don't you try setting automatic App updates? Then your apps will automatically update in the background. Go to settings and tap on iTunes & App Store in the panel on the left. A new panel opens on the right. Near the top of this panel, you'll see Automatic Updates. Under that are 4 options the last of which is App Updates. Turn the slider switch on. Now your app updates should load automatically.


Why chrome 34.0.1847.137 crash my os x 10.9.3? Chrome crashes my 13" and 15" rMBP.

  I got to press the power button to reboot to solve it.

The shutdown monitor log and chrome://crashes is empty, so I check the system log.

5/17/14 16:12:45.946 Google Chrome[306]: CGSCopyDisplayUUID: Invalid display 0x1b559efe
5/17/14 16:12:46.066 Google Chrome[306]: CGSCopyDisplayUUID: Invalid display 0x1b559efe
5/17/14 16:13:57.443 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:13:57.443 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:13:58.361 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:13:58.361 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:14:27.394 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:14:27.394 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:14:30.231 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:14:30.231 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:15:04.180 loginwindow[78]: magsafeStateChanged state changed old 1 new 2
5/17/14 16:15:21.030 loginwindow[78]: magsafeStateChanged state changed old 2 new 1
5/17/14 16:15:34.039 SophosWebD[99]: <SMENode: 0x7f9af3e09c70> localNode csc:1ERROR! encountered an error while writing to outputstream| error:Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=32 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Broken pipe"
5/17/14 16:15:35.099 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:15:35.099 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:16:37.447 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server
5/17/14 16:16:37.447 Google Chrome Helper[4105]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFECC) from font server

Chrome Version:34.0.1847.137
extensions:
Google Docs 0.6
OneTab 1.6
Pocket (formerly Read It Later) 1.7.1
plugins:
QuickTime Player - Version: 7.7.3
Widevine Content Decryption Module - Version: 1.4.2.464
Adobe Flash Player (2 files) - Version: 13.0.0.214
PPAPI (out-of-process)
OS X:10.9.3

Is there anyone else got the same problem?

I also have Sophos installed. Maybe that breaks internet access? Edit: Seems to be the case. Have a look here: Sophos Website


How can I download free music from the internet to itunes on the iphone/ipad without using a mac/pc? There are loads of bands on the internet offering their music as free downloads on their websites. Either as zips or direct mp3 downloads. What ways are there for iphone/ipad users to get the music playable via itunes without taking the mac/pc detour and without jailbreacking?

There are no ways to download an .mp3 using only your iOS device for later use by the Music app on said iOS device.

You have two options:

Download music via the iTunes app on your iDevice.
Download music on your Mac/PC and synchronize with your iDevice.

When "previewing" an MP3 in Safari or in Mail on an iPad, in the past several versions of IOS, you have the "Open In" option to put the file in any installed app that can accept files.  Many such apps can play MP3s.  However, "Music" (formerly known as iTunes) will not be on the list.

Nothing against GoodReader or iCab, but neither of them is mandatory.


No new wallpapers in iOS 10? I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. I have upgraded my iPad Mini 2 from iOS 9 to iOS 10. Official release, not a beta, neither a GM.  I don't see any new wallpaper.

Are there any new wallpapers included in iOS 10?

There is one new wallpaper included in iOS 10, shown below. iOS 9.1 included new wallpapers so it's possible that 10.1 will as well.

I would assume apple isnt focusing on wallpapers so if you dont see any dont be alarmed since not everyone is looking for wallpapers in new updates and new wall papers might come out in future partial updates.


MacBook Pro CPU temperature is over 90 degrees while playing video I have MacBook Pro:

13-inch, Late 2011
2.4 GHz Intel Core i5
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000 384MB
OS X Lion 10.7.4

When it plays a video, the CPU temperature goes over 90 degrees celsius and the fan makes loud noises. Is this normal? Or should I change speed of fan and make it faster for better cooling?

I believe that it is common for the CPU to reach 90°C under heavy load. However a simple video should not bump an i5 into that region. Depending on the footage and format you are playing back you might want to try a different player (vlc mplayerX). If you are playing back flash HD videos in your browser (especially multiple streams simultaneously), that behavior might be common (due to the bad flash performance on os x).

So much for the software.

Secondly you should take care of the outer temperature (e.g.is your computer in a very hot room) and even more importantly where your notebook is placed. e.g. does it sit on a carpet or any other good insulating soft cushiony surface that prevents heat from leaving your computer.

Thirdly you might want to take a look in the activity monitor and see whats using your cpu. (Maybe some background application e.g. spotlight indexing new pdfs)

In Safari, right click, copy url of the video and play it on VLC. It will solve 100% the problem ;)


Auto-launch Waze when connected to Bluetooth Is it possible to have the Waze app on iPhone automatically launch when I connect to my car BlueTooth?

No, you can't script apps to auto-start on iOS.  Perhaps if it's jailbroken you could, but I'm pretty sure that's beyond the scope of what can be supported here.

There are apps that do this.  They have an option inside the app that somehow enables this result.


Is the boot time of an iOS device affected by the apps that are running at shutdown? I suspect that apps that use system services might take time to register each app in the appropriate places at startup.

Is the boot time of an iOS device affected by the apps that are running at the previous shutdown or the number of apps installed?

My experience is no one, ten or even 50 apps can slow down your boot in any measurable manner. Even an old iPhone 3 with 11 pages of apps booted in visually the same time as a freshly restored iPhone 3.

The reason for this is a number of design choices that provide real benefits to the running system and also are good at isolating boot times from application influences. Specifically, nothing auto-launches, there are not multiple user accounts to prepare, and the OS systems that display and interact with apps work from databases that update when apps are deleted or installed - not at boot time.

Yes,

As with all computing the more the device has to load up the more time it will take.

He difference in this case will be minimal as the total storage space of a device is fairly small and the amount of processing power taken up by the applications is also small in comparison to a computer starting up. So will not really notice a difference.

Often iOS updates have included performance upgrades and these updates can reduce login time as the processes are shortened.

The case with apps running at last shutdown is dependable. When you Shut down the device totally the phone has to load up the last pages and instances the apps were in. This again is not an awful lot of processing power and will affect your start-up in seconds.

Advice is to keep multi-tasking apps to a minimum, as they can slow down your device overall, not just booting.


Spoofing a serial number on a MacBook Pro I have a MacBook Pro that got liquid spilled on it. I cleaned it up and everything works except the fact that it no longer has a serial number. When I go to look at System Information, it says "Serial Number: Unavailable." I've tried re-flashing the serial using Apple's Blank Board Serializer tool, which didn't work. I think that the place where the serial is physically stored on the board is somehow broken.

So is there any way to "spoof" a serial number so that FaceTime and iMessage work correctly? I've been looking at trying to set boot arguments, or change kernel extensions, or something.

Where in the boot sequence does the OS look for the board's serial number, and how can I change that? It seems to be stored in the NVRAM, but I can't access it.

AFAIK, there is no way to clear a serial intentionally or by accident. The only way to get a blank system serial number is when the logic board is replaced. Replacement MLB only comes with a part serial number but it does not have a system serial number. I assume that you took your laptop to have it repaired?

When a new logic board is replaced by Apple or an Apple Certified Service Provider, the logic board needs to be serialized after the repair. Normally an ACMT doing the repair will run basic MRI test after the repair which will then be identified as a blank board thus allowing the ACMT to add a serial number to the board prior to running the test.

You can go back to the repair shop and they will most likely correct the sloppy error of forgetting to add the serial number. If that option is not available then you can try going to the closest Apple store but the only way they will help you is if Apple or an Apple store branch did the repair or an ACSP/ACMT did the repair.

Take a look at this , AST_BBS only for blank serial number it not will change your seria number use ISO image to pendrive boot
https://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/viewtopic.php?t=3327853&view=next


On iPad's iBooks, how to make highlighting show up for PDF files? It seems that on iPad, iBooks, Kindle, or Kobo won't show any user highlightings?

For example, just go to https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/Introduction/introObjectiveC.html and you will see at the top right corner to download the PDF file.  Right click and save it into your Mac or PC, and use Acrobat 10 or Mac's Preview to highlight the word "Objective-C" on the frontpage of the file.  We can close and re-open the file to see the highlighting.

Now use DropBox or Box.net and transfer the file to iPad's iBooks (I am using the New iPad (3rd Gen)).  (Done by downloading the file and "Open With" iBooks). The highlighting won't show up at all.

This is a simple test... the other document which I highlighted for many pages also won't show any highlighting either.

Is there a way to make the highlighting show

in iBooks
in other apps?

I tried also the Kindle app and Kobo app on iPad and they won't show the highlighting either.

iBooks for iPad currently doesn't support highlighting in PDFs. However, there are many 3rd party apps like iAnnotate PDF, GoodReader, or PDFpen that support PDF highlighting and annotating. I use GoodReader and I can personally verify that PDF highlights that were made on Mac's Preview do show up on the GoodReader iPad app.

I also tested the DropBox iPad app and PDF highlights do not show up.

Hopefully, Apple will add PDF highlighting to a future version of iBooks. If enough people request this feature at the Apple feedback site, maybe they will add it in the near future.

If you can download the file as an .epub then it shows you your highlighting.


Safari IOS keeps redirecting to https to non-supported http site I'm using Cloudflare, i have set redirect https to http and it just ends up in a redirect loop on Safari,
 Neither removing cache worked. Its very annoying , for a service status page of my web.

But what, it works on Chrome, Puffin and a lot of other thirdy parties browsers..

Safari just tries to redirect HTTP to HTTPS.

Is there any way to stop this?

I had this problem too and posted my solution on the Apple community site:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250107953


I do not have enough free space on the C:\ drive of my Windows computer to run the updater for iOS 5 in iTunes I am trying to update to iOS 5, but iTunes wants 10 GB in the C: drive. (I don't have that much free space in C, but I have it in another partition.)

I have already reinstalled iTunes in my secondary partition (300 GB free) and moved the Preferences > Advanced iTunes Media to my secondary.

But still when I try to update to iOS 5, iTunes tells me there is not enough free space (it still wants to use the C: drive).

Are there any other settings I should check?

I think that iTunes is trying to use your gobal Windows temporary folder. By default, this directory is in your user Local Settings directory, located on the same drive as Windows. This is a system-wide setting that applications are supposed to follow.

You can change the path to this temporary folder by changing the value of the TEMP environment variable. You'll have to restart iTunes after changing the variable to have it take effect.

Just like @cksum said in response to your question: move ten gigs of files from your C: drive to your secondary, update to iOS 5, and move the files back. It's not like iTunes is going to keep using the space after the update is complete.


Is it possible to download iOS 8 beta without Developer Account? My device is iPhone 5 (American version). Is it possible to get iOS 8 beta without buying access to Developer Account?

No.

You need to be a registered developer agreeing to the license agreements AND your device needs to be registered as a development device.

As always, there are ways around this, but that is illegal. Torrent sites sometimes offer the software and in the comments developers offer to register your device as a development device. But these developers are at risk to lose their own development access.

Furthermore the first betas tend to be buggy. Unless you have an obsessive need for the latest stuff or are a developer you don't actually want it on your phone.

yes register your udid and download it or wait a couple days or weeks perhaps and wait for the un-registered version to come out


iPad 2 loses touch response in particular area of screen My wife's iPad 2 is having a weird screen/touch issues.

In a particular part of the screen (near the middle bottom on the left side if holding in portrait with the home button down), it just doesn't respond to touch, most of the time.

Some things we saw were:

can not move icons above a fake 'line' on the screen, they just drop back to where they were or near by
When using a drawing app, you just would not get lines here (Paper actually thought it was more inputs, and kept doing that redo gesture)
Maps just stutters when you hit that point, but works fine

The area seems to move/grow/contract, which is really odd. I feel like this is due to touch response in the app we are using, as in, icons on springboard are aligned to a grid, maps doesn't expect constant input, etc.

At one point, the display seemed to loose its mind. It was registering multiple taps, responding to taps in areas we didn't tap, etc.

I tried restoring the device, but that did not fix it.

I figure this is a hardware issue, but not knowing too much about screens on the iPad, what would have to be replaced? Most of my searches just say 'take it to the Apple store', but I am looking to see what would have to be replaced and how much it would be, to determine if it would be worth repairing or just replacing.

Update: Here is a video (not mine) that has almost the exact same issue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=797bfjbEEi8

Take it to the Apple store. They will not only help you be sure it's hardware but explain how they would get you an equivalent device for a known cost with Apple's warranty on the "repaired" iPad part. They might even be able to speculate if the case shows damage that might make a determination if it's more/less likely that you have a wiring or glass/digitizer issue.

Then you can decide if you want to buy a used iPad and try to scavenge parts or buy a new digitizer and roll the dice to guess if it's the screen or the connector or the chipset on the main board that turns the raw signals into a touch event.

Once you know your "official cost to replace" you can decide if you want a DIY project or perhaps pay someone that repairs iPads professionally to offer a repair that might be cheaper than Apple's but have less of a warranty than getting something factory made or factory refurbished.

If you have a screen protecter take it off and wipe the iPad with a damp rag.


is there a way to create an AFP link to point to any user's home directory? I would like to send a link via email to a file that everyone has in their Dropbox. The file exists on everyone's machine in the same relative location, however everyone has a different User Name.
On my machine, the file is accessible at afp://Users/scott/Dropbox/shared/example.pdf
Unfortunately, afp://~/Dropbox/shared/example.pdf does not work.

I am running Lion (10.7.1), most others are as well, a few are running Snow Leopard (10.6.x)

Well simplest way would be ~/Dropbox/shared/example.pdf (~ denotes user folder) but that will not probably work right from email.
You have to put it in Finder's 'Go to Folder...' dialog window which you can invoke with cmd+shift+G shortcut.

Create an applescript as a simple .app:

Open Applescript Editor, Paste in:

tell application "Finder"
activate

-------------------------------------
-- CHANGE This setting TO the PATH
-- (no leading slash)
-- Don't include home folder. That's done below.
-- -- If the full path is "HardDrive/Username/Desktop/Folder1/fine.txt":
-- -- set filepath to "Desktop/Folder1/fine.txt"

set filepath to "Desktop/filename.pdf"

-------------------------------------

set myPath to (path to home folder) as string

set filepath to POSIX path of myPath & filepath
try
    set command to "open " & quoted form of filepath
    do shell script command
end try

end tell

You can then Save as..., and Select APPLICATION as the file type.

Anytime this new app is launched, it will open the folder/file specified, relative to their home directory.


Can I set up password protection for an external hard drive? How do I set up password protection for an external hard drive?

Password protecting a drive isn't really possible (or even useful) without also encrypting the contents of the drive. Honestly I'm not even certain that's something you can do since, what would the password be granting access to if the contents of the drive weren't encrypted?

So really the question you want to ask is: how do I encrypt an external hard drive?

With Lion you have FileVault to achieve this. FileVault makes it easy to encrypt your primary drive but you can also use it to encrypt the contents of remote storage. Just about any read/write storage media you attach via USB or FireWire can be FileVault'd and secured. The caveat? You can only use FileVault-protected drives on other Lion machines.

MacWorld has a short slide show that walks you through mounting and formatting the disk with an encrypted file system. To summarize the steps:

Mount the drive
Open Disk Utility
Select the drive and click on the Erase tab
For the format pick either Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) or Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted) from the list of available options. In most cases you'll want the former.
Press Erase to start the format
You'll be asked to confirm your choice and enter a password for the volume
Once the formatting is complete you'll need to enter the password to be able to mount and view the contents of the drive

If you're not running Lion or you want something that's portable across multiple OSes you can look at TrueCrypt. It's free software for encrypting file systems, much like FileVault, but it's available for Windows, OS X (both Snow Leopard and Lion) and Linux so you can access the encrypted remote media from just about any machine.

You can password protect files on the hard drive, but not the whole hard drive itself.

But you could put all your files in a folder in your hard drive and put a password on that folder which would have the same effect.


How to disable Acrobat Reader in Safari? In Safari, the default PDF-Viewer in Safari is "Preview".

Unfortunately, since I installed the Acrobat Reader, this default changed to the Acrobat Reader, which is extremely annoying.

How can I change this back to "Preview"?

Go to the "Help" menu in Safari and select "Installed Plug-ins". This will open a new tab displaying information about all of the currently installed plug-ins. Find the entry for Adobe Acrobat. Below it will be a line that reads something like:

Adobe® Acrobat® Plug-in for Web Browsers — from file “AdobePDFViewer.plugin”.

Note the name of the file from that line.

On your hard drive you will find a Library folder.  In that folder will be another folder called Internet Plug-Ins. Inside that folder you should find the file that was shown in the "Installed Plug-ins" tab. The full path should be /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin. That file needs to be deleted.  Dragging it to the trash will do the trick.

If you are not sure you want to delete the file, you can move it to another location. For instance, you could create a new folder named "Disabled Plug-Ins" in the "Installed Plug-Ins" folder, and move the file to the new folder.

Then quit & relaunch Safari.

Adobe acknowledges this is a "known issue" and recommends this procedure.

the best solution is just to put Acrobat Reader in the trashcan. It's 400 Mb of recovered space on my HD


Recent items are showing under "No Date" when sorting by date in finder This thing's driving me crazy.

Often, when I download or create a new file, and then I have to upload it to a website or something like that, it will appear after the oldest items under a "No Date" section.

I'm running Mountain Lion but it happened for me at Lion as well.

Any ideas how to fix this?

I don't know if this is really a "solution" per se, but it's a workaround that I prefer anyway: I changed the "Arrange by" to "None" as described here Mac OS X - File Open Dialog: Can't sort or resize columns

This gets rid of the categorization by Today/7 days/30 days/etc. altogether, and just gives a straightforward dialog that lets you sort however you want (be it Date Modified, or Name, or Size). I find this much more useful and fail to see the advantage of the other view (which is made almost useless by this No Date bug).

Note that some applications (e.g., MS Office) do not let you change the Auto-arrange setting. Just open up some other application that does (e.g., Chrome) and set it there (just go to Open File or similar -- you don't have to actually open the file). This action seems to set this setting globally (on 10.8.4).

This problem is all over the web. Why does Apple not comment on it? Does it not care about its users? Why does it not release a fix? Is iTunes so much more important? This bug seems almost ludicrous: The arrange-by setting used for categorization is (normally) "Date Modified", and the actual modified date is clearly shown in the Date Modified column. Indexing in the general case perhaps needs to happen not in real time (e.g., if you are viewing "All Files"), but when we open a dialog, can't just the (usually very few but most important) No Date files be manually indexed in that moment?

Just click on Today, and it should update the downloads to their correct date.