What should I do about iCloud if I have a Mac with OS X 10.10 Yosemite and an iPhone 4 with iOS 7? I have an iPhone 4, and that's not likely to change any time soon (unless I break it). Being a 4, it can only use iOS 7; I can't install iOS 8 on it.

On my Mac, I've installed OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Yosemite offered to upgrade to iCloud Drive, BUT: I don't have iOS 8, so my iPhone wouldn't be able to use files in iCloud anymore, right? ...the phone wouldn't be able to use iCloud Drive, right? And Yosemite needs iCloud Drive, so until I upgrade to iCloud Drive, my Mac can't use files in iCloud anymore, right? ...Yosemite can't use the old system?

So what should I do? Do I have to choose to use iCloud with either my Mac or my iPhone? Should I go back to Mavericks? Is there something I'm missing, or is there any other way?

You are correct. From John Siracusa's extensive OS X 10.10 Yosemite review: (emphasis mine)

  Upgrading is not mandatory, but iCloud Drive completely replaces the old “Documents & Data” item in the Yosemite’s iCloud preference pane. Applications like TextEdit and Preview won’t provide access to any form of iCloud document storage in Yosemite until iCloud Drive is enabled. You’ll be prompted to upgrade during the account setup process. If you decline, you can upgrade later by enabling iCloud Drive in the iCloud preference pane.

And Apple's KB page, specifically addressing iPhone 4 customers at the end:

  iPhone 4 customers

  iPhone 4 does not support iOS 8 or iCloud Drive. If you upgrade your iCloud account to iCloud Drive, you will not be able to use iCloud with Pages, Numbers, or Keynote on an iPhone 4. You’ll still be able to use the iWork apps on an iPhone 4, but without iCloud.

As for what you should do, I guess there aren't many counterintuitive answers here: Either get by without iCloud until you get a newer iPhone, or elect to use other syncing services like Dropbox, Box, or SpiderOak.

sorry but what difference does it make to upgrade or not to iCloud drive once you install Yosemite?
I said 'no' to the upgrade when installing Yosemite on my macbook, but changes made on the "icloud/pages" documents in the Pages App on my Mac (running Yosemite but NO iCloud Drive) do not appear anyway on my iphone4 ... so what is the advantage of not using iCloud Drive if it does not update anyway??
And iCloud.com isn't accessible either from safari unless you upgrade...
For what it seems, the 'old' iCloud is gone, as far as my iphone4 is concerned


Which Exchange Email apps for iPhone 5 allow advanced font and layout controls? What I need in my Microsoft Exchange 2010 mail client:

send e-mails in the text font I want
send e-mails with my HTML signature
reply to e-mails without unformatting the e-mail being replied to
having the sent e-mail look just as it was sent by Microsoft Outlook itself
no artifacts like having the replied e-mail sent as an HTML attachment

Coming from an Android, I had this with Touchdown.

What do you recommend for iPhone 5? What's the best, well integrated with the device, Exchange 2010 mail client?

Try Mail+ for Outlook. It is similar to the native iOS experience. Though it currently doesn't offer all of the features you mentioned, I know there is a new update coming by the end of February which will have rich text editing and better reply experiences. Apple severely limits the ability to use push notifications, so don't expect too many iOS mail clients to provide.

Altamail might be another solution to look at.


How to schedule run of .command file (bash)? I have a bash script (saved as myfilename.command) and would like to schedule its run. I've tried to use Calendar event for this (which works fine with Automator scripts), but I get the following error -

  “myfilename.command” can’t be opened because CoreServicesUIAgent is
  not allowed to open documents in Terminal.

Is there any way to fix it?

There are several ways and I think the first step is to make the .command file just a shell script.

Given you comment re automator I would suggest the easiest way is to create an automator/applescript that calls this shell script. This then can be called by calendar

Other ways are using non GUI tools and call the shell script from a cron or launchd entry


How to print as PDF using Acrobat 10, when no printer is installed? Preview or Acrobat can both print out individual pages of a PDF file, as a new PDF file containing only those pages, but I think Acrobat 10 probably can print out page 1, 10-12, and 5 -- in any order, while Preview can only print out the "selected page" and must be in ascending page number order.

Preview can do that, but if using Acrobat 10, then going to File -> Print will actually trigger a "No printer is installed.  Please install a printer first"...  The thing is, I am really trying to print as a PDF file and there is no printer around... so is there a way to get past that dialog and print the pages as a PDF file?

When you have a file that you want to print as a PDF, go to "Print.." (Command ⌘ + P) and select "PDF" in the left hand corner:

Then select "Save as PDF...":

Then, you'll be presented with a save dialog:

Using this method, you shouldn't need to have a printer installed.


RStudio Server Initialization Error on Mac El Capitan I have installed RStudio Server using Homebrew on a Mac Pro Server with El Capitan. Then I followed instructions in the INSTALL file. When I launch RStudio Server from the host computer (http://localhost:8787) or remotely, it accepts my username and password but then I get this error:

"RStudio Initialization Error: Unable to connect to service".
This seems to be common with Linux installs, but none of those posted solutions solve the problem on my Mac. I tried logging in as different users and administrators but I the same error message either way.

Solved - there was an error in my .plist file


Is there a quick way to lock my Mac? On Windows you can hit the keys Windows+L to lock your computer if you step away.

I don't want to have to remember if sleep currently asks for a password, if there is a time out where my screen isn't locked during a short period. Even with Lion supporting resume of many apps, I don't want to log out.

I do want to be sure data is secure when stepping out for lunch or a smoke break.

On macOS High Sierra, there is a standard key sequence and Apple menu item to lock your screen.

Control-Command-Q or ^+⌘+Q

For older OS, ⇧+⌃+⏏ puts the display (only the display, not the whole computer) to sleep and will then prompt you for a password if you have enabled Require password [amount of time] after sleep or screen saver begins under System Preferences > Security.

If your Mac does not have an ⏏ (eject) key, you can use ⇧+⌃+⌽ (power).

I've used Salute for years - works beautifully.
A nod to Windows' three finger salute - ⌘+⌃+⌫ gives you quick access to screensaver (set a password on the and your done) - terminal or activity monitor. It's no longer actively developed but doesn't need to be - worked great on Leopard through Mavericks.


How to fix brew after OSX upgrade to Yosemite? I faced some issue with Homebrew. I upgraded to Yosemite. After the upgrade, homebrew seems to be broken.

I would run any brew command and get this error

/usr/local/bin/brew: /usr/local/Library/brew.rb: /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 26: /usr/local/Library/brew.rb: Undefined error: 0

How to resolve it?

I decided to look this up and found that there is an issue. The issue is closed but it is not possible to simply run brew update because you will still get the same error.

So here is what you need to do:

cd /usr/local/Library
git pull origin master

In case you have changes in the directory (/usr/local/Library), the git pull will throw an error. In that case, you'll have to fetch the master branch and set it forcibly as master:

git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/master

This will upgrade your homebrew and you can use brew again.

If you installed Homebrew as a non-root user, you'll need to cd to /Users/yourusername/homebrew/Library instead of /usr/local/Library.

I first tried the highest rated answer an then hit another issue.  After that I kind of gave up on fixing it since I had just a couple packages installed.  Maybe others are in this boat as well.

While these are all excellent answers, for me it was simpler to just to re-install brew.

First, I ran the instructions on:

http://brew.sh/

which directed me to first uninstall, and printed a command line.  I ran that command line to uninstall, then re-installed, and everything was fine.

I don't want to print the specific commands, as they tend to change a bit as brew adjust how things are installed.


Can't delete files from iCloud/Desktop I've recently started having issues with my Mac. I'd create a screenshot on my Macbook, which would land in my iCloud/Desktop folder (I don't know why this changed, but right now instead of saving on my Desktop only it saves in iCloud/Desktop only). The files are saved as "Screenshot 2020-01-14 at 11.08.14.png".

Unfortunately I can't delete these files. Trying to delete them gives me the same sound as if the action was successful, but they still remain. I've had to manually log in to my iCloud account and delete them from there. I tried clicking on "Remove Download" but it doesn't do anything.

I'm on MacOS Catalina 10.15.1 (19B88)

I don't know why this changed, but right now instead of saving on my Desktop only it saves in iCloud/Desktop only

Hit cmd + shift + 5 > Options and change the screenshot save location. I cannot take a screenshot of a screenshot window, but it's easy.

  .. my iCloud/Desktop folder ..

You might have turned on iCloud for Desktop and Documents. Check in the System Preferences → iCloud options.  Turn it off, and all your documents will get downloaded to an iCloud Archive folder directly under Users/me/. Then you can move all those content to the original, local Desktop folder.

If you don't like it, just change the screenshot save folder to a non-iCloud synced folder.

Looks to me like two issues:

Why do you have two Desktop folders? On my machine - and I strongly
assume, this is how its supposed to be - I have one Dektop
folder, which is located in iCloud. Thats also where the screenshots
for example go.

  Trying to delete them

Where did you delete them? Also in the trash can?

"Remove Download" only removes the item from your local machine, freeing disk space, but keeping them available on iCloud.

EDIT: As far as I know, there is macOS 15.2 available. Install it (after you backup your files).


iPhone lock screen/multitasking bar audio controls don't work From time to time (in fact very often) my iPhone will stop displaying the lock screen "now playing" info, and subsequently the controls won't be there.

I can still start the music app playing something, but I can't pause or skip tracks.

The same thing can be seen if I try to use the multitasking audio controls (swipe "left" on the multitasking bar). The play/pause button won't stop audio playback. Can't skip.

Same problem with the headset remote buttons. Can often start audio playing (although what it'll play is random). Can not stop/pause, can not skip.

I've not been able to reproduce this reliably, but it happens often. The phone is in this state more than it isn't. A restart resolves this most times.

How to fix?

Possible Causes:

Mobile substrate add ons on a jailbroken device
Corrupt event handling events
Loss of data with streaming services
Accessory interference
Airplay
Older version of iTunes

Several things to try:

If you are jailbroken try booting into safe mode (SBSettings Feature).
If problem is with data streaming app then try the iPod app.
If accessories are connected, disconnect them.
If the problem persists, restore to the latest version of iOS and update iTunes.

I was facing the same issue. A restart fixed the problem.


Why are dot underscore ._ files created, and how can I avoid them? I am using different operating systems on different machines on different locations. I am using a USB flash disk to keep my files (source codes etc.).

I am new to Mac OS X and now I realize there are lots of files created with a dot underscore ._ prefix.

Questions

Why are ._ files created?

What are their purpose?

How can I avoid them?

You can't avoid them (but see the dot_clean answer by Saeid Zebardast --they can be removed from a directory if that is what you need).  They're created to store file information that would otherwise go into an extended attribute on HFS+ (Apple native) or Unix/UFS volumes; in earlier Mac OS this would be the resource fork.  Finder file operations will create them automatically to store the icon information, plus Time Machine stores some information in them so if you copy a file backed up via TM it will have that information copied as well.

(This is nothing new; I've noticed that XP and later leave various turds around as well, although not quite as many.)

Be careful when deleting ._ related to Git, Visual Studio, and Xcode!  I have an app with a lot of .mov and images and these "._" files showed up to be committed.  I deleted them via Visual Studio Team Explorer's changes and somehow that project folder bloated from around 500MB to 40GB without adding files...still not sure what happened exactly, but I'm guessing it was related to deleting those files so every commit it cached each .mov and image multiple times before I caught on.  I saw each .mov and .png repeated 20-30 times when in Finder > All Files.

Just add "._*" to your .gitignore file and they won't show up as a changed file when using TFS for you iOS Xcode project.


How do I change iOS settings to "not" sync notes over the air with iCloud I first unchecked "notes" in settings, iCloud.  That didn't change anything so eventually I deleted the iCloud account altogether.  That didn't change anything.  How do I set my phone to sync notes with Outlook on my PC and disable syncing notes over the air with iCloud?

If you are being returned the following iTunes message (see screenshot below). Make sure to only have a single notes account called "On My iphone". You can access your iPhone notes account by opening the Notes app on your iPhone and tapping on "Accounts".

You can bring all of your iCloud notes to your "On My iPhone" account as per these directions: How to transfer iCloud notes to "On My iPhone" account


Can't empty trash of removable HD I can't empty the trash of my removable drive. At first it appears to empty it correctly (no error message, the sound is played), but the folder in question stays there.

I tried:

jan@MacBook-Pro /Volumes/JD 2 $ sudo rm -rf .Trashes/

which gives errors like the following:

rm: .Trashes//501: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/: Directory not empty

Anyways, I narrowed it down to a .svn file that can't be deleted:

root@MacBook-Pro /Volumes/JD 2/.Trashes/501/CD_10.2009/devel/funghos $ ls -altr .svn
-rwxrwxrwx  1 _unknown  _unknown  690 Oct 21  2009 .svn
root@MacBook-Pro /Volumes/JD 2/.Trashes/501/CD_10.2009/devel/funghos $ rm -f .svn
root@MacBook-Pro /Volumes/JD 2/.Trashes/501/CD_10.2009/devel/funghos $ ls -altr .svn
-rwxrwxrwx  1 _unknown  _unknown  690 Oct 21  2009 .svn

As you can see, no error appears, but the file doesn't get deleted. Huh?

This is due to the MNT_IGNORE_OWNERSHIP flag being set for the drive when mounted. The unknown user and group are exactly what show up when root views files on a drive for which permissions are ignored.  When a user views the permissions, the files will show up as their own.  I'm surprised you can't delete the .svn file from your own account (not root)

Please see this Ask Different Answer for more direction.  Basically, you'll need to uncheck the "Ignore ownership on this volume" checkbox from an inspector on the drive info.

If you can't delete it from your user account, try setting yourself as the file owner with the ignore flag unset.

If you can locate the file in Finder, can bring up the info pane (cmd-i) on that file and check its not locked or has incorrect permissions?


Can you recover a deleted message or chain of messages from iPhone? I see all of these software that claim that they can recover messages deleted from your iPhone. Do they actually work?
For example, if I received 2 text messages from my friend and I immediately deleted them. Is it possible to recover them?

If you have done an iCloud backup before those messages have been deleted then you can bring them back from iCloud backup with a restore from iCloud.

Actually, there's a matter of fact you should not ignore: all the deleted messages will soon be overwritten randomly to make room for the new coming ones. If you really want to recover deleted messages from iPhone without backup, before you use any third party recovery software, you should turn on Airplane mode immediately to stop deleted messages getting overwritten.

By now some of those data recovery software do have an ability to recover deleted messages, but they can't be certain that their software can recover all your deleted messages. Some of them are free for try, like Gihosoft iPhone Recovery, which you can test by yourself. Also you can find some user guide video like this on Youtude: https://youtu.be/n1thXApuo9c.

To avoid important messages or something else missing, I suggest you back up your iPhone regularly.


What is the max resolution output by the HDMI port of the MacBook Pro Retina? Does the MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) output 2560x1600 to the HDMI port?

The reason I ask is that I would like to drive 2x30 inch 2560x1600 monitors while still using the Gigabit Ethernet adapter. (My backup plan is to get the USB 2 to 100 Mbit adapter and use that and then just use the Thunderbolt for graphics). So I would appreciate any additional caveats to this plan as well.

If it's HDMI 1.4 as noted above, it should support "4k" resolution (4096×2160p24)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_1.4

Where is all this "HDMI is limited to full HD" falseness coming from?  For years HDMI has supported resolutions well beyond any what TV set could display... or at least any TV set mere mortals can afford.

If you don't trust Wikipedia, then go to the source and look at the HDMI 1.4 specs for yourself.  http://www.hdmi.org/download/press_kit/PressBriefing_HDMI1_4_FINAL_8_0_061809.pdf


Erase USB in Disk Utility says "Permission denied" I'm trying to format my USB so I can get all the space back onto it, but every time I try to erase it in Disk Utility, this comes up:

  POSIX reports: The operation couldn’t be completed. Permission denied

Try with diskutil:

diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ "new name" disk1

Replace new name with the name you wish the disk to have, and disk1 with the disk identifier (select disk → Info).

Although it may seem unintuitive, try formatting the drive using a Windows computer. Then, take the now (Windows) formatted drive over to the Mac and  format it there - it will work.

It's has happened to me many times too, but the speed of this method has always greatly outweighed any further research time.

I hope that helps you out, however, the question of what causes this error could be one of many... hence, if you need a formatted drive now, this will work.
But do let me know how you get on.


"Safari" would like to control this computer using accessibility features I recently did a clean install of OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 on my MacBook Air.
I was making a credit card payment on the Barclaycard website and received a dialog window saying ""Safari" would like to control this computer using accessibility features."
I chose "Deny" but I am wondering why I received this dialog in the first place? I am certain I was on the actual, official Barclaycard website. Do I have malware? The only extensions I am using with Safari are AdBlock and 1Password.

Text only version:

"Safari" would like to control this computer using accessibility features.
Grant access to this application in Security & Privacy preferences, located in System Preferences.
Open System Preferences Deny

Based on the way accessibility features work in macOS, it is reasonable to assume that when saving or entering usernames and password using Apple's Keychain, or when using AutoFill to enter data into a page, that it uses some type of virtual keyboard that allows the system to enter text in user land. This would be very similar to how assistive devices function when using an Automator extension such as the "Watch Me Do" function. The reason why this comes up is because it is attempting to either read or write to the screen on behalf of the user.

This is an assumption, but it is based on working technical experience with the underlying software sets involved.


Enable/disable Time Machine depending on network connection type I've not got a great Wi-Fi setup here at home and it sometimes results in failed Time Machine backups.  Is there a way of specifying that Time Machine only backs up under certain circumstances - i.e. Ethernet connection is active...?

This AppleScript will check if the Ethernet connection is active, and then run a Time Machine backup if so.

First, disable Time Machine in System Preferences. The below method will run it automatically.

While connected to Ethernet, you will need to run one command manually to confirm which interface Ethernet is assigned to. Run this command:

ifconfig

It should output a screen full of information. What you are looking for is a section labeled en with a number after it, and whose last line is status: active, like this:

en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_HWTAGGING>
    ether 00:25:00:ef:30:3c
    inet6 fe80::225:ff:feef:303c%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5
    inet 192.168.1.68 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
    media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
    status: active

Note the number next to en at the beginning - this is the interface that your Ethernet connection is running on. In the script below, where it says en9, replace 9 with the number from above. (If you have a Mac Pro, it will most likely be en0 or en1. Otherwise, it will likely be en0.)

if (do shell script "ifconfig en9 | awk '/inet/ {print $2}'") is not equal to "" then
    do shell script "/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/backupd-helper &"
end if

Save this as EthernetTimeMachine.scpt into your home folder (/Users/<yourusername>/).

Next open up Terminal and type the following command:

pico ~/crontab

This will open up a text editor to allow you to schedule this script to run on an hourly basis, just like Time Machine does by default. Paste this line:

@hourly osascript ~/<yourusername>/EthernetTimeMachine.scpt

Press control+X then type y and press return to save and exit.

To disable it, go back into Terminal, again use the command:

pico ~/crontab

Then delete the line you added above and use the same steps to save and exit.

You can open you Network Prefs and make sure Ethernet is the top connection in the service order. You can see what I mean in this screenshot, I hope.

Then, if Ethernet is connected you should always use it as your primary connection.

See here for how to set the service priority: http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/15/set-network-connection-priority-mac-os-x/


How to convert an HTML file with referenced images on the command line to a webarchive? Under macOS I want to convert HTML files with referenced images on the command line/programatically to webarchives.

Given a sample file sample.html containing:

File with resource

This file shows text and references an image.

and an image sample.jpg in the same directory, I can view the html file in any browser and it is render with the image. To convert to a webarchive I tried:

textutil -convert webarchive sample.html

but the resulting sample.webarchive does not, when opened in Safari, render the image - though it contains it (see comments).

How can I do the conversion from the command line correctly, so that the result contains and renders the image? After all that's what webarchives are for!

Use the tool webarchiver (which you can install via brew install webarchiver):

webarchiver -url sample.html -output sample.webarchive

The webarchive produced contains the image and Safari shows the image when it displays the webarchive.

I think the commandline is not aware of any image being included.

I tested a simple webpage with image+text and opened it with Safari.

If you choose File -> Save as .. 'webarchive' you can see in the created webarchive that the image is appended at the end of the file.

It's quite obvious that Safari is using some Internal Swift/Objective-C function to implement the Image.

If you choose to get the html and have the image as a reference it seems to ignore the image and only output the text (via textutil).

I would not rely on webarchives when downloading webpages - instead use wget or curl or scrapers like scrapy/beautifulSoup and download them.

I know it's convenient to have 1 file, but that is not the best way to save images and such, that makes it pretty hard to extract them afterwards.


How can I force Lion to use iCloud? Here's my situation: I have the new iPhone 4S which is using iCloud beautifully. However, my MacBook is still using MobileMe. When I go into System Prefs > iCloud, it has a big button that says "Click here to move your MobileMe account to iCloud."

When I click that button, the browser goes to me.com/move, then I log in, and it immediately redirects to me.com/find and then a screen appears saying "Ok, you're all set, you may now start using iCloud."

Except... I'm not. When I go back to the System Preferences > iCloud, it still has the "you need to move from MobileMe" screen and the button to start the transition. And I am 99% sure that my contacts, calendar etc are not syncing with iCloud, so I can't get them on the phone (that's a problem).

So... the phone is all set on iCloud, but I need to tell Lion to use it. I assume the me.com/move web page someone would send a message back to Lion saying "ok, this user has made the transition, now you can show the 'real' iCloud preferences panel," but that hasn't happened.

HELP!

I found the answer: log out of MobileMe in the System Prefs panel, and then the iCloud panel will prompt you to log in (instead of offering the "Move to iCloud" button). Log in with your iCloud account and you should be all set. Worked perfectly for me.

go to me.com/move to move your MobileMe to iCloud

Following instructions on that site to migrate your MobileMe account to iCloud. Then enable iCloud on your mac.


iPhone claiming low battery in cold weather With the cold weather, a rather odd problem appeared on my iPhone 4S – whenever I use the phone in weather below ~12 °C, it turns itself off and claims to be out of battery. This most often occurs when the battery is at 20-30 %, but isn't limited to that at all.

When it happens, I've found that rubbing the phone to heat it up helps, but that is a temporary fix, as it turns itself off again if exposed to cold again for a couple of minutes.

The fix has worked for quite a while, but it seems the phone can handle less and less cold - starting at about 10 minutes in -10 °C at 10 % battery left when it first happened, to about 3 minutes in 10 °C with 30 % battery. Therefore I have to ask – what can I do about it? I guess it will most likely have to be sent in for a replacement or repair, but I doubt this is covered by the phone's warranty (at least Apple's own)?

I would question two things about your framing of the issue (and will sidestep the whole repair discussion/issue entirely):

1) Apple's warranty does cover batteries that don't retain a percentage of their useful life based on aging at one, two and three years (two for most iOS warranty / coverage, but there are exceptions in some cases). You should open a ticket with them if you have coverage and see if they will repair it for you.

2) I use an iPhone regularly outdoors when the temperature reaches -30 C and even then, the decrease in capacity is temporary. While the device is colder than 0C - you get less juice out of the cell, but once you warm it (in a pocket, next to your skin to warm it temporarily - or when you are inside a heated space for long enough to warm the battery), the devices recover full capacity.

(You will want to watch to control condensation to prevent liquid damage / especially if you bring a very cold device into a warm humid space, that warm air will carry liquid inside the product. Similarly, a warm device when rapidly cooled could have liquid condense inside it and then freeze.) Devices left in a car overnight such as iPad and Mac also see no measurable decrease in battery life once I get them inside and warm - whether I charge them or not.

I'll leave the DIY repair / pay for a repair discussion for another thread where you get specific on what model, but from what I see, the environmental behavior is that cold batteries still have all the charge they took, but they don't produce as much voltage and current while they are cold.

There was a recent article by CNN that suggested a case company "Salt Cases" that makes thermally protective cases. I found their site on the web at: http://www.saltcases.com
The CNN article was pretty interesting too:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/13/tech/mobile/cold-weather-phones/


Error when installing matplotlib I tried to install matplotlib on OS X Lion with the pip install command, but I get the following error:

error: command 'clang' failed with exit status 1

Does anyone have a solution?

matplotlib is part of the python 2.7 installed with El Capitan, no need to install it.


How do to hibernate OS X in order to reboot to Windows 10 I have Yosemite and Windows 10 installed on my Macbook Pro 2015.
On Windows 10 I can hibernate. Then press the power button and hold down ALT key to boot from OS X.
However, I can't do the same thing the other way around.
I have to shut down Yosemite or restart, in order for the ALT key to work for booting options.

I tried the pmset hibernationmode 25 thingy with 1 second of standbydelay - when I press the sleep button and after that the power button, holding down ALT key doesn't give OS boot option menu.

Is there a way to achieve with OS X what Windows does?

I am trying to find a working way to do that for a few days now, browsing a bunch of topics here on stackexchange and different articles over the internet - nothing seems to work.
I haven't tried third party paid applications though.
Tried DeepSleep application - it's hibernation feature also doesn't bring up the boot menu when holding down ALT either. I am not even sure if it even hibernates.

Nope. OS X only has sleep, no hibernate mode. If you want to save your work while dual-booting, try a virtual machine, like Parallels or VMWare Fusion.


My iPhone 5s shuts down when it has remaining battery My iPhone 5s was shutting down automatically when it had 80% percent battery. Yesterday I restored it with iTunes and compatible firmware (6.1), now it shuts down at 73% battery.

What is the problem and how I can solve that?

You have essentially eliminated software as a cause by restoring the OS. If it happens consistently around the same percentage remaining, you likely have bad cells in the battery. Batteries cannot be repaired, so you must either have it replaced at an Apple Store or authorized repair center, or consider ordering parts and tools and doing it yourself if you have some technical proficiency (e.g., https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+5s+Battery+Replacement/19239).

I had the same issue before. Most likely your iPhone's battery isn't calibrated correctly. Try to calibrate it. If the problem persists, then you have a bad battery, it's time to visit the Apple Store.


Is chmod enough to change the permissions? My file needs sudo everytime I have file copied from an usb hard drive with a previous installation of os yosemite copied in it. Now I'm using Sierra.

The status of the file:

karim@doraemon:~/Downloads
$ ll Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf
-rw-r--r--@ 1 karim  staff   4.5M Jan  3 19:42 Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf

I have the same name user of my previous installation, maybe this could be a problem, but I'm not sure because from the finder, if I check permissions, I get 'Karim (Me)' as a owner.

karim@doraemon:~/Downloads
$ whoami
karim

I change the permissions:

karim@doraemon:~/Downloads
$ chmod 777 Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf

The file permissions are changed.

karim@doraemon:~/Downloads
$ ll Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 karim  staff   4.5M Jan  3 19:42 Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf

As you can see, I'can't modify the filename.

karim@doraemon:~/Downloads
$ mv Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf Python.recipes.handbooksaa.pdf
mv: rename Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf to Python.recipes.handbooksaa.pdf: Permission denied

I already checked on finder and the file is not locked.

As suggested I run this:

karim@d:~/Downloads
$ ls -leO@ Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 karim  staff  - 4758205 Jan  3 19:42 Python.recipes.handbooks.pdf
    com.apple.finder.copy.source.checksum#N       4
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot       50
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot       50
    com.dropbox.attributes       83
 0: group:everyone deny write,delete,append,writeattr,writeextattr,chown

The last line seems to explain what is happening on the file.

It looks like those files are coming from a Time Machine backup, and still have the don't-mess-up-the-backup access control ("group:everyone deny write,delete,append,writeattr,writeextattr,chown") attached. You can remove this with e.g.

chmod -N Python.recipies.handbooks.pdf

You might also want to remove the stray extended attributes with

xattr -c Python.recipies.handbooks.pdf

On the macOS HFS+ filesystem, there are other attributes beyond the standard permissions and ownership. See thie answer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4833052/how-do-i-remove-the-extended-attributes-on-a-file-in-mac-os-x


Can I view or export or clear Siri's interaction history? I would like to ask you is it possible to somehow access all of Siri's history to view it or delete it?

No there is no way to access Siri history. If any of it is stored, it will be stored anonymously as chunks of different words and phrases on Apple’s servers for better voice recognition.

Here is a way to view history. Hope this helps.

View Siri history


Using Software Update server without binding Mac to Lion Server domain I've got a Mac Mini Server running Lion Server. Right now, it is serving the Netboot and DHCP services. I'd like to set it up as a Software Update server so Mac users in my office can run their software updates more quickly.

This is the only Mac server in the office. All of our other servers are all Windows based. Most of the machines (Macs included) are joined to our Windows domain. All the Mac users in the office use portable MacBooks Pro that go home with them at the end of the day. They need to still be able to run use the Apple Software Update server when not in the office.

I'm looking for a way to have these Macs only use the Software Update server on my Mac Mini Server when in the office and for it to default to the Apple Software Update server when they're not in the office.

I found this, but it does not run on Lion.

Is this possible?

There is a way to do this, but it involves fiddling with DNS to make a 'transparent' software update server. When clients are on your network, their requests to "Apple's" SWU servers go to yours, without any modification of client settings, it truly is transparent.

Check this article out. It's a little old, but this is the general idea that you want to be going with.

  In your internal DNS set swquery.apple.com, swcdn.apple.com, and swscan.apple.com as CNAMEs for the server running SUS.

Profile manager can set this, and if you don't want to use that then a) why bother with a software update server at all and b) the config files are in /etc/swupd.


Make apps smaller / "zoom out" apps I made my screen resolution much smaller, so now most apps look 4x larger than I'm used to.

iTunes and Finder for example are much larger than they need to be.

Can I make everything about these apps smaller?

The text, the window sizes, the icon sizes etc.

Macbook Pro w/ Retina display, mid-2015 15".

I used RDM to make my screen to 720p. Previously had been 1080p HiDPI

Go to the screen and right-click on the desktop. This brings up a menu and the last option is to "Show view options". Select this. You'll get a small window where you can adjust the icon size.

You can also change font size and icon spacing.


Why does this applescript not actually set the input volume to zero? I have this command that builds a script to mute the input volume. The input volume is not fully muted, though. It seems to be closer to 10% than 0%.

osacompile -x -e 'tell application "System Events" to set volume input volume 0' -o ~/bin/mute_mic.scpt

This is odd, because the slider bar is as far left as it can go, but as you can see from the attached image, sound still is registering. However, if I use the mouse to click on the slider at zero, then it does actually mute the input.

Why does this happen? Am I using applescript improperly here?

I can even replicate this with the basic AppleScript Editor, so I know it's not a problem with the compilation.

(Note: I originally took my cue for the solution to this problem from this question's answer.)

As far as I can tell, the script works as expected, the problem is in the OS X audio input code. When I run it, the slider goes to 0%, verified by mousing over the slider until the tooltip appears:

This is the same as if I drag the volume slider manually.

The problem is seemingly that "0%" doesn't actually mean off, but rather a very low threshold. In some quick testing, I could record the sound of my finger tapping on my MacBook Pro's casing near the mic (on most machines I believe it's around the right speaker grill) when the volume was set to 0. I could replicate that regardless of whether I set the slider manually or via AppleScript. It did seem to be low enough that virtually any other sound isn't picked up, but clearly the microphone isn't truly off.

As far as I can tell, there's no way to properly mute the built-in mic. The best I can suggest is changing the audio input to use the line in, if your Mac is equipped with a line in port. Doing that via AppleScript requires some GUI scripting unfortunately, but this should do it (source):

tell application "System Preferences"
   activate
   set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.sound"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
   tell process "System Preferences"
       set frontmost to true
       --get properties of UI element of tab group of window "Sound"
       click radio button "input" of tab group of window "Sound"
       tell row 2 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of tab group 1 of window "Sound" to set selected to true
   end tell
end tell

If you have more than the two standard audio inputs (Mic and Line In), you may need to change the number in row 2 to whichever is appropriate, according to the order in your Input preferences.

There now seems to be an app to do this
Shush
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shush-microphone-manager/id496437906?mt=12


Unknown contacts appeared out of thin air My contact list op my iPhone 5s suddenly shows hundreds of contacts for people that I do not know with full contact info. I have synced with Facebook and have LinkedIn and Exchange installed, but these contacts are not part of my "friends". Has anyone experienced the same issue? What can I do?

There are many possibility:

1: Facebook sync with your contact info, as I know, Facebook will suggest people you may know to you.

2: Are you using a same Apple ID with your families or friends? Contacts will sync to your other device with same Apple ID.

3: Are you using other's SIM card? SIM card store contact inside the micro chip!!

4: Your Apple ID have been hacked.....change your password immediately and never tell others your ID and password.

For me it seemed to be Outlook contacts.

.

I checked the group settings in Contacts as you see in the picture and all the junk contacts went away.


Use custom .M4A as an alert tone in iOS 12 I have a .M4A file on my Mac that is like a second long. I want it to play when people text me. How can I add it to my iPhone as an alert tone?

To make a custom ringtone or text-tone:

Open clip/song/sound using iTunes. Use the Song Info options panel to trim the start and stop time if you would like.
Select the song in iTunes and go to File -> Convert -> Create AAC Version
Right click on the new version and select Show in Finder
Change the extension from .m4a to .m4r
Delete the song from your library. Make sure to not let iTunes move the original version to the trash.
Double click on the .m4r version of the song. It will appear in your ringtone section.
Change your song's start and stop times if you need to reset them to normal.

Since you already have an .m4a, you should be able to make a new copy and change the extension to .m4r and open it in iTunes.

edit It's important to note that to find the Tones section your phone should be connected to iTunes, then go to the overview of your phone, and select the Tones section from the left panel. The Tones section will generally not show up in your normal library.

Use this link for all extensions except .m4a (if the extension is already .m4a, then proceed to the next step): https://audio.online-convert.com/convert-to-aac

After converting the file to AAC (extension .m4a), change the extension to .m4r

Then use iTunes to import it to your device.


Cannot format SSD in optical bay I tried to install a new SSD with a higher capacity in the optical bay. But OS X cannot format the SSD. I also tried to swap with an HDD but the same problem occurs with an HDD. Failure format or something like this. The drives have SATA III, I checked Mac info. Intel 6 series chipset with 6GB for both HDD and optical bay interfaces which means SATA III (?). When I format the HDD through USB I can write to it via SATA, but Disk Utility suggest repairing. If I check this drive, Disk Utility cannot repair this drive.

How to resolve this problem?

Macbook Pro 13", late 2011

I tried to repartition in two parts. The partitions are created, but before it is complete, and names are assigned to the partitions, Disk Utility fails.

Intel 320 series works without problems in OptiBay, but it has SATA 2, so looks like a SATA problem.

Have just faced a similar problem with MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011) and SSD installed into the Optibay. Operating system: macOS 10.12.3 (16D32).

«Disk Utility» got stuck on the «Waiting for partitions to activate» phase of the erasing process.

The solution, which worked for me, was to put the SSD into the main bay and the HDD into the Optibay.

There was a firmware update for late model 13" MacBook Pros, possibly just the 2012, that properly enabled the SATA 3 in the optibay. In all other (non Retina) MBPs it's safest to use only SATA 2 drives for stability in the optibay, even though they report as SATA 3. Your HDD should have worked in the optibay, but may have been faulty, unless it was SATA 3.
Search the OWC blogs for the many articles regarding the optibay issue.


Disable HiDPI resolution My macOS High Sierra install keeps switching to 720p HiDPI in stead of running at the native 1440p.

When I click on the 1440p setting it shows me the correct res but it switches back after about 1 second.
When I reboot my Mac I also log in with the correct res but it changes to HiDPI after ~5 seconds.

The monitor is from Asus, 27" 2560x1440.

I tried changing the res with SwitchResX and jhford's screenresolution utility.

I found a way to disable this behaviour through the this command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool NO

high sierra gives you the option to let the system switch between the two gpu's automatically depending on what it decides is the right one for the situation. you can disable this by going to system preferences - then to energy saver. in the top left corner is a box you can tick or untick with the option to let high sierra decide to use automatic graphics switching or not. hope that helps.


Open safari pdf link in acrobat reader,not in ibooks Using an IPAD - (ios-10)
I have Acrobat Reader on my Ipad
I get emailed alink to a PDF - on a microsoft OneDrive account
Or I get a email link to a PDF
Or - I am on some web site that offers a PDF link

I click on the PDF link - and it opens in Safari, and/or I can ask to open it in IBOOK

I need to instead open the link in Acrobat directly some how.
I need to save the pdf locally

I need to mark up the PDF - so that means I would like to use Acrobat Reader instead - but - there is no "share with acrobat reader" - there is no "Open in Acrobat Reader" -

As a trivial example - this link:

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/sn74ls00.pdf

I want to (a) save the PDF locally - becuase I do not always have internet access where I am using the ipad.

I want to (b) make this available in Adobe Acrobat (becuase I can mark the pdf up) and save the PDF locally.

Key words here are: The PDF file is Saved locally, Opened Locally, and marked up using Acrobat

What I have tried:

THIS does not work: How to open PDF files stored in iBooks on iPad in Adobe Reader

WHY? The PDFS are huge - and for various reasons I am forbidden to email them, and I am not suppose to store them in icloud, dropbox, etc.

This says it cannot be done from ibooks (wow that seems really stupid)

(I would have a link here to an example, but stack exchange does not allow more then 2 links)

THIS does not work: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1615234

While some files are in OneDrive - I do not have a ONEDRIVE account, I'm sent a link to the file and - the one-drive app assumes is MY onedrive account ... it is not - I am given a link to the PDF

Other places suggest there is a way to "open in acrobat" by clicking the SHARE icon - acrobat does not show up in the lists, nor do i know how to add acrobat to the list of things I can share with

If I open the link in Safari, I can click "Copy to IBOOK" - but I cannot copy to acrobat - how do I do that?

And FYI - I have hit the share button, and acrobat is not on the top half of the list, and it is not on the bottom half of the list and I have no way, and do not know how to add acrobat to the list of apps

==========

Using my PC - and ITunes or other app - to download/move/transfer/sync the PDF file defeats the entire idea here...

Also - I don't always have the PC with me when I need to do this.

Updating to IOS-11 - fixes the problem - adobe now appears in the “Open in Adobe” as a selection.


Can I play Warcraft 3 (DotA) on a Mac? I owned a MacBook Pro. I want to play a PC game called WarCraft 3 (with the DotA mod). I have Google and done some research on how to play DotA on the Mac. I can think of three possibilities:

Possibility 1: Buy Warcraft 3 for Mac (it does exist). However, I already own the PC version, and I dont want to waste another $60++ bucks to buy the Mac version (it's an old game).

Thus, I come across some forums suggesting using a VM or using Boot Camp to install Windows and play. This leads to

Possibility 2: Using Boot Camp and install Windows. Well, it sounds good for me, but I've never doen it before and I'm afraid I'll crash or need to reformat my Mac when partitioning, and Apple also recommends keeping a backup for your Mac when using Boot Camp. I do not want to go through all these troublesome things, thus I do not prefer this method.

Possiblility 3: Finally, using a virtual machine. I use VirtualBox, and already have a Windows XP install, running, that works perfectly fine. Now, I am wondering, if I install Warcraft into this virtual machine, and play the game ~5 hours a day, will it crash my Mac?

I have a few general questions about running Warcraft 3 in a VirtualBox VM Windows XP on a MacBook Pro:

1) Will the game lag, the video rendering, etc.?

2) Most importantly, will it damage my Mac?

If you have other methods of playing DotA (Warcraft 3) on Mac other than what I mentioned above, please do share them.

You can create an account at www.battle.net and then tie your Warcraft 3 CD to your account.

Once you have done this, you are free to download the client on Windows or Mac at any time.

There's no need to buy different copies :)

S3/lag - never tried VirtualBox for gaming, but Parallels works flawlessly with Direct X emulation.

S3/damage - the only possible damage come to my mind is the overheating damage. My old macbook (white plastics) survived very looooong WordOfWarcraft play without damage. My friend with aluminium (pro) notebook needed repair his video and wifi card - both times overheating damage - but both times it is detected as Apple's fault...

Ps:

S4 - go out with your girlfriend - it is much better spent time... ;)


How can I upgrade all my Pages '09 documents to Pages '13? I have a very substantial body of Pages 09 documents that I work on.  I've upgraded to Pages '13 recently.  Now, every time I open one of those old documents to work on it, I am greeted with the following dialog upon my first keypress:

Is there any way to mass upgrade them?  Or to default this behavior to "Upgrade Already!!"

I was able to fix this by doing the following steps:

Create a new pages document, and just throw in whatever text. Save it.
A .pages file is actually a .zip file, so right click on that and unzip it.
In your 09 pages file, right click and select "Show Package Contents"
Copy everything from the Index directory of your 09 pages doc to the Index directory of the new one.
Zip up your new one, the one you unzipped and copied in the 09 index files.
Rename the zip file you just created with a .pages extension
Open in pages.


Is it possible to stream audio via AVB between two Macintoshes? I have two Macs that I am trying to stream AVB between. Both machines are running Mavericks and can see other AVB devices and stream with them. However when trying to stream from one Mac to another Mac it does not function. We have tried with an iMac, two Mac Mini, a Mac Book Pro, and a Mac Air.

Is it possible to stream between two Macs for just audio? Under Audio Midi Setup the network devices is empty.

Thank you.

You need an avb switch, like the one from motu or presonus.


Is there a way to make folders open in a new window by default in OS X El Capitan? Is there a script for making folders open in a new window by default in OS X Yosemite or OS X El Capitan?

Set folders to open in tabs or windows

  In the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click General.
  Select or deselect “Open folders in tabs instead of new windows.”

  Open folders in tabs or windows

  Press the Command (⌘) key while you double-click the folder.

  The folder opens in a new tab or window, depending on your Finder
  preferences. Tip:   If the Finder toolbar and sidebar are hidden,
  double-clicking a folder without pressing the Command key opens the
  folder in a new window.

  To open a new Finder window without opening a specific folder, choose
  File > New Finder Window or press Command (⌘)–N.

Info from: OS X Yosemite: Open folders in new Finder tabs or windows


Why do apps only display in top left quarter of screen after installing Winterboard? After installing the jailbreak app "Winterboard" just now and then rebooting as required, all my apps including settings and phone etc. only display in top left quarter of screen.

Only that screen quarter accepts touch input, but the touches are relative to the entire screen. This means I can't interact with the bottom and right halves of any apps, making it impossible to revert the installation.

Googling for this problem tells me that it was a problem with the version iOS 5 GM, which is a pre-release. But I'm not using that; I've just installed the newly released iOS 5.0.1.

Also, the recommended fix is to use SBSettings to start in failsafe mode, but I never had SBSettings installed, and I can't install it now with the screen acting up this way.

How can I fix this problem, apart from restoring from my PC?
I know I can restore from backup and then re-do all the jailbreaking, but it'd be nice if there was a way to avoid that.

This is what I've done:

I first made a backup to my PC, then the iOS 5.0.1 upgrade, then a restore from the PC to make sure I had all the apps and data again (I didn't; somehow several apps were missing after the restore, but I just installed the rest manually).
After that, I did the jailbreak and started adding Cydia apps. One app required the installation of Winterboard, and that is what caused this problem.
I'm fairly sure Winterboard is the culprit because when it happened, I restored again, jailbroke again, and began reinstalling Cydia apps again in a different order. It broke like this again while installing a different Cydia app that also requires Winterboard.
There's a weird effect going on that indicates that although the size of the displayed image is reduced but the size of the touch area remains full-sized but unresponsive outside the displayed quarter of the screen. In a paint app, I can drag from inside the display quarter into outside, but I cannot start a touch outside the display quarter; nothing happens.

So I know that I can "fix" the problem by restoring from the PC again and avoiding any Cydia apps that require Winterboard. But I would like to avoid restoring if possible, to save myself the trouble. I'll keep that as a last option in case there's no other way to revert this.

Ok, according to this Cydia thread, you have installed an iPhone 3GS wallpaper on your iPhone 4. Since the iPhone 4 has four times the resolution of the iPhone 3GS the apps will only show up in the left quarter of the screen.
Here's the fix:

Go to Settings>Wallpaper and choose any of the default wallpapers. Hopefully that will work.

And you don't need to restore. Winterboard makes no changes to the original OS files.

Since you can't press the Set button, you will need to restore and make sure that you avoid any apps that use Winterboard. Too bad!! I hope I've been helpful!

To remove it, you need to find where the winter board dilyb is on your phone and using an iPhone explorer on your computer remove it, then send then reboot and all should be good


macOS Sierra broke SSH Kerberos authentication I have used Kerberos GSSAPI authentication together with SSH to connect from my Mac to work servers. However, ever since the macOS Sierra upgrade, I'm forced to enter passwords again.

My ~/.ssh/config looks like this:

Host MYSERVER
    GSSAPIAuthentication yes
    GSSAPIDelegateCredentials yes

I originally had there GSSAPITrustDns yes as well, but after the Sierra upgrade, SSH refused to start up saying that it could not parse the config. Removing the line fixed that.

Is there any way to get this working again?

I asked this in the SSH mailing list openssh-unix-dev@mindrot.org and I got this answer:

The GSSAPITrustDNS was never part of portable OpenSSH. This option originally comes from third party extending kerberos support in OpenSSH, which is no longer maintained, but can be simply rebased on the current sources.
The problem in this case is Apple dropping this patch used by many people, so the Apple is the place where you should ask (or your OpenSSH packager of your favorite repository).

http://marc.info/?l=openssh-unix-dev&m=147850754710753&w=2
It seems that we have to ask apple to put this feature back.

DSA Keys are not secure anymore and you need replace them with RSA keys.

Generate new RSA Keys

  ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

You can refer more detailed steps here

https://help.github.com/articles/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent/


Does the 'iPhone' label on a Contact's phone number enable any special handling? When entering a contact's phone number in the Contacts app on iOS or the Address Book on OS X, the number can be labeled iPhone rather than, say, mobile. Does doing so have any effect on how the number is treated by the OS or applications? Or is it provided for purely aesthetic purposes?

The iPhone label does not provide any special handling instructions or added features of any kind.  It's a purely aesthetic touch that only impacts the display and voice dialing of a contact's number in the same way any other label does, such as "Home", "Work" or "Mobile".

If you are looking for further information on how the iPhone does provide special handling for other iPhones, such as iMessage and FaceTime, there is a great thread, right here on Ask Different, that details just how the iPhone, in conjunction with Apple's servers, uses the UDID and Apple ID associated with the device to provide all those special iOS only features.

You get unlimited texting iPhone-to-iPhone. Also note that when you text another iPhone the colors are different.


Apple Watch charger not charging I have an Apple Watch Sport. Today I tried using a car port to charge my Watch. However, it does not work. I used the same charger and port yesterday and it worked fine. Why is my Apple Watch not charging?

You have to do some basic trouble shooting.  You have two components to check:

The 12v power port in your car
The charger

Plug your charger into the power port of a different car with a power port you know to be good.  If your charger works, then the problem is related to your car.  If it dosen't work, then your charger is at fault.

Alternatively, you can plug a known working charger into your car.  If it works there as well, it's your charger.  If it doesn't, it's your car.

I found it easiest to make this flowchart myself:


Single application not showing up in Spotlight I have a strange issue where Matlab stubbornly refuses to appear in Spotlight search results.

I'm not sure what information to provide besides the fact it clearly exists in Applications:

It even appears in Launchpad just fine:

I don't have anything blocked from being indexed by Spotlight:

And yet, even searching for the exact name in Spotlight only yields some crash log.

The Spotlight search also works just fine for anything else / any other apps, and it updates fine (for example, I just searched it for the screenshots I made, and it found them) so it is not just "stuck".

Any ideas?

Go to System Preferences --> Spotlight --> Privacy. While that's open, go to Finder --> Applications and drag Matlab from Applications into Privacy. Close out System Preferences then reopen it and remove Matlab from the same place.

This will force a reindex for Spotlight. I've seen this work for some people and not for others but it's worth a shot.

Quicker alternative to the accepted answer:

Go to System Preferences --> Spotlight --> Search Results
Untick Applications
Tick Applications

You may need to close and re-open preferences between (2) and (3).


No Text Notifications or Sounds from One Contact So this is an issue that I’ve had for a few months: On my iPhone 7, currently running iOS 11.4.1, I’m not getting any sort of notification from one specific contact in my phone. No ringtone, no vibration, no banner on top of the screen, no blue circle next to their name in the Messages screen, not even a noise when I’m IN the conversation and they send a text. Basically it’s as if I’ve already READ the text.

And I know the first answer is going to be “Turn of Do Not Disturb for that person”; that’s not it, I’ve done that so many times it’s not even funny. I’ve changed the text tone to default and changed the default, I’ve turned on Emergeny Bypass, I’ve deleted a huge amount of texts/attachements from them, I’ve deleted the contact all together, I’ve power cycled my phone more times than I can count, and I’ve completely reset my phone once; nothing has worked.

This is probably a good time to mention that when this problem started, there were TWO contacts that had this issue, but, by some sort of miracle, one of them started giving me notifications again... and I did absolutely nothing, they just randomly came back, and this was a couple weeks after I completely reset my phone and straight up deleted their contacts.

The only thing that I can possibly think is that there are too many messages in the conversation. I have Keep Messages set to Forever and this is the one person in my contacts I text the most, so there’s A LOT. But at the same I’m not quite sure. Like I said, I deleted a TON of messages, and actually switched my Keep Messages setting from Forever to 2 Weeks, so that must’ve deleted hundreds... still nothing (and I changed it back to Forever) And just today I realized I had a good amount of attachements I hadn’t deleted (about 400, yes I know absurd), so I got rid of them... still nothing. So I’m just completely stumped.

My only saving grace is that, for whatever unknown reason, the technological gods decided that I can get their notifications through my Series 1 38mm Apple Watch. If I don’t have it or it’s not charged, I’d never know they’d sent me a text.

The only thing I haven’t done is delete the conversation all together and... we’ll id rather not, for personal reasons, but if I don’t get anything that works then I’ll do that. So if anybody has ANYTHING that might work, it would be greatly appreciated.

My moms friend had this problem also and we ended up doing searches and found that my mom was listed 4 times in different apps and she deleted them all and put it in again in contacts and it worked. If you go to messages for example and pull down on screen you can search. So it might be entered into several apps. If you pull up more than one then this could help. Just can't hurt to try it.  Or if you go to iCloud.com Mail and Contact settings you can see if there is a rule.

I have the exact same issue with only one contact
I am certain the hide notifications is enabled and
Even toggled it on and off to make sure . I deleted the contact as well and verified they are only saved on my phone once . I get notifications from all other contacts except this one


Can I solder more memory into my MacBook Air? I love everything about my Macook Air except its very low maximum memory (and yes I bought it with the maximum available at the time).

So I'm thinking "I know how to solder... how hard can it be?".  It's not that unusual for the theoretic limit at the time a computer is manufactured to be surpassable later when modules with more memory become available.

Is the claim that the memory can't be upgraded based solely on the assumption that no one knows how to solder?  Or is it massively more difficult to solder new memory into a laptop than it is to solder some simple electronics project?  Are there any big difficulties other than just the need to solder the memory in place (and unsolder the old memory)?

iFixit, who is a proponent of replacing everything in your system, does not provide a guide to replace the RAM (only the entire logic board, on which the RAM is soldered). This alone should tell you that it is something that should not be attempted by users who are not professionals.
One user did ask in their forums if it was possible. Here's one response:

...to replace/upgrade/or modify those chips, we send them to factory. Precision soldering is required, it is not to be done at home (too fine a work for home, unless you have done this same exact work before and done it well everytime).
Even after factory re-work, some boards/assembly simply fail (shorted etc). Definitely not worth the risk unless you have direct access to a mother board assembly factory and someone does it for you over there.

Another user said:

In any case SMT chips as densely laid out as these are can't be desoldered and new ones desoldered by hand. You need very special gear only available at a fab house.

And a third user added:

They use a special fixture to hold the chips in place and heat both sides at the same time. Your chances is less than 20% getting it to work and heating the board without the proper masks could cause the other components to shift killing your system for sure...

Given that you can sell your (presumably functioning) existing machine for a fair amount of money, it seems like it would be much more practical to buy a new machine than take a very high chance of destroying your current one, since then it will be worth next to nothing.

RAM: Look in OWC to se if replacement memory for your MBA. If so you will find instructions on how to change it.
SSD: same as before, for some models they have replacement SSD.


How can I successfully uninstall the new Mac Pages program and go back to the 09 version I'm currently working on a project that requires hyper links, which I was able to create in the 09 version of Pages, and which could be exported to PDF with all hyper links fully operational.

Unfortunately the new version of Pages won't do this (you can enter hyper links in but they won't work when exported to PDF).

I do have both the old version, as well as the new version of Pages on my mac. However every time I open up an existing file, or create a new one, in the 09 version, it automatically asks me if I want to upgrade this to the new version. To not upgrade one needs to click "edit existing copy." But the problem is when you save it (which has to aways be as a copy) and then close the file, it seems to save it regardless in the new version, or certainly when re-opening this same file, all the hyper links and other goodies associated with the 09 version, are all gone.

As far as I'm concerned the 09 version is a way superior product. Therefore I figured the best way to go is to completely get rid of the new version and go back to the old one.

Is this possible, and if so how can I go about doing this in a way that won't affect any of my files? I have them all backed up anyway, but just wanted to make sure before going this way and want to make sure I can go back to the 09 version without any major issues.

My 09 version was originally loaded in via disk by the way. Please advise if possible, thanks guys.

The Mac App Store updates to iWork should not have replaced the original iWork '09 apps. Simply delete the new apps and use the old ones.

The original apps should still be available under /Applications/iWork '09 as well as if you search for them in Spotlight. If you've deleted the older versions, you can use Time Machine or reinstall them from the retail CD.

There is no way to. I tried just deleting the new one and a couple weeks later, it says you need to update. There was no other way of opening the file besides opening. And also, some of my files wouldn't open for school!!! PLEASE FIND A WAY TO DO THIS.


Can I recover deleted viber messages after my phone is erased? My device is Iphone 6, I had deleted some messages from my viber, then I erased my phone 2 days after that, then I noticed there was information I need. I don't have back up of any sort.

can I somehow recover those messages? if yes how likely?

No.  Unless you have friends at NSA AND Apple.


Reveal in Finder from the Terminal How do I reveal a file that I have the path for in the Terminal in Finder? I don't think that open will work for this.
Specifically I want to be able to fzf for a file and then pop it in Finder.
(I guess this would work if you get the path, chop off the file bit and then call open on the rest?)

How do I reveal a file that I have the path for in the Terminal in Finder? I don't think that open will work for this.

From man open:
-R  Reveals the file(s) in the Finder instead of opening them.

So, open -R /path/to/a/file.ext will reveal your file in the Finder...

Specifically I want to be able to fzf for a file and then pop it in Finder.

In its most basic usage the following will reveal in Finder the file selected from the execution of "$(fzf)":
open -R "$(fzf)"

The following fzf key bindings will map ctrl-r to reveal the file in the Finder and ctrl-space to a QuickLook of the file:
fzf --bind 'ctrl-r:execute(open -R {}),ctrl-space:execute-silent(qlmanage -p {})'

If you're in the directory (presumably you are) type
% pwd | pbcopy

then open  Finder, press  Shift Command G to  "Go to Folder", paste  and press Return.
The  open command as  detailed by this answer is the fastest and easiest   my  opinion, I just wanted to provide you with an alternate method to highlight some features of  macOS users may not be aware of:

pcbopy utility that sends input to the clipboard
Keyboard shortcut to open folder directly in  Finder


Is there an iPad app like Snagit for marking up screenshots or pictures with arrows, callouts, dropshadows, torn edges, etc.? I LOVE Snagit.

I know that captures can only be done in iOS with the built in Home-Power screenshot function.

But I'm looking for an app that will allow me to edit those shots and add arrows, shadows, edges, callouts, blur, freehand circles, etc.

Is there something that does this well, with a focus on annotation?  (So I get that I can do this in Keynote an other apps, but since they're not made for it, it's painful, they can't export the picture back to the photo roll, etc.)

I you are looking mainly for annotation then Skitch could be worth a look.
It lacks the more fancy features you asked for (torn edges, blur, etc.) but for basic annotation (arrows, text, freehand) it is quite good.
Although it was acquired by Evernote it is possible to save the annotated image back to the camera roll.

I was using Grafik Note, this is designed for iPad

Import photo from gallery or by camera
Drawing line, segment with/without arrow.
Drawing free curve with/without arrow.
Drawing outlined/filled rectangle, oval, round rectangle.
Highlight color.
Free text.
Drawing speech bubble with rectangle/oval/ round rect
Enable to change outline and fill color, editable dash style, enable to change line width
Enable styling text color, font, size and alignment.
File manager which supports create folder/rename/copy/paste/move.
Sharing your annotation photo with the world via email, Facebook, Twitter ...


Is it possible to enable Legacy FileVault for a network user? I am running Mac OS X 10.8 Server with File Sharing and Open Directory providing home directories to network users, so when users log in their home directory is automatically mounted over AFP.

Is it possible to enable "Legacy" FileVault (FileVault 1) where the user's home directory resides inside an encrypted DMG sparsebundle when the user is an Open Directory user whose home directory resides on a network share?

I know this could be done in 10.6 server for mobile clients but I do not know if it can be done in 10.8 server.

I haven't seen anyone hack together a script to re-implement the FileVault encrypted disk image settings, but I have heard of people using a pre-Mountain Lion machine to make more local users and then migrate them to OS X 10.8.

It requires a second machine (or VM if that is up your alley) but I haven't seen any downsides to moving more FileVault 1 type accounts to new systems other than the obvious downsides associated with those accounts:

backups to Time Machine only run when unlocked
compacting of free space can be problematic
slight slow down and chance of breaking some software that assumes hard coded file paths


Problems with Group SMS I have an iPhone 4S. Whenever I try to send a group message to people who have iMessage and people who don't, I either get replies from 1 person but I recieve it as an individual text message or I don't get any replies at all. Everybody else in the group who has iMessage is able to see the replies as they would in any other group message. Please help!

*I have tried resetting it to the factory settings, turning iMessage and Group SMS off and then back on, and turning off my phone.

This sounds like a temporary issue. Can you reproduce it after updating the os and carrier settings?

Can you reproduce it after signing out and back in to iMessage with your appleid?


How is Apple repairing iPhone 5 with damaged glass at the genius bar? iMore reported back in September that Apple retail stores would soon gain the capability to replace the glass in front of the screen in the store.

Has anyone had a repair quoted or performed for an iPhone 5 where Apple didn't replace the entire unit?

I've heard of out of warranty replacement phones for $229. Also, I know that there are 3rd party services that will do this repair. I'm asking about replacing just the glass in an Apple retail store.

$150 without being covered by Apple Care warranty is a sweet deal. Our company purchases back the broken LCD from repair shops around the USA and this is really going to be stiff competition. There isn't anyone offering iPhone 5 LCD replacement for under $150 in any retail repair shop around the US. Their all between $160-$200. In the past Apple's repair prices haven't seemed like a business model they wanted to focus on. I'm left scratching my head at what this could mean for their future plans to compete with the boom of iPhone repair shops. I suppose it might not be as big of a deal since there are only so many Apple Genius Bar locations nationwide.

you can’t replace only the glass because the digitizer and LCD screen are fused to the glass. It’s not a little piece of glass that was probably made in China for under a dollar. It’s a special piece of glass combined with electronics that was made in China for quite a bit more than a dollar.

Iphone 5 screen lcd digitizer black


Screen sharing stops working after disconnecting for about five minutes I'm running macOS Mojave on a Mac Mini. Built-in VNC server works perfectly when you connect for the first time after reboot, however if you disconnect from it for more than five minutes you can't connect again - it displays the username that was used for the last session and a spinning wheel. Connecting via ssh and killing screensharingagentd doesn't help, only a reboot does. I've verified all the power saving settings are off. There are two virtual machines with macOS High Sierra and Sierra running on this same Mac Mini and I can connect to them without any issues.

My workaround for this problem is to login via ssh and kill loginwindow process:

sudo pkill loginwindow

This will allow to login via VNC then.

Apologies that this is as an answer but I lack enough reputation to add it as a comment.

I had exactly the same issue so I took to contacting Apple for support.  After a lot of back and forth trying to explain the issue I was eventually given this response.

  Apple Support

  So, regarding this specific setup, this is something outside of normal
  consumer support that we can assist with. I can, however get you in
  contact with our business department who works with remote server
  access and can help provide you with more details moving forward. For
  those steps, this would require contacting our phone support. Would
  you like for me to schedule a time for you, or would you prefer the
  phone number to get in contact with them at your leisure?

  Me

  Give me the number and I'll see when I can get a call
  done.

  Apple Support

  Sure thing - here is the main AppleCare support number:
  1-800-275-2273 I will also email you our case number as well. When you
  contact them, you can let them know that you are looking to speak with
  our business support team regarding a remote server issue, and they
  will get you route you to the right place.

  Me

  and so we're totally clear remote screen sharing is not
  supported for normal users only for businesses?

  Apple Support

  That is correct

So from that if you are an end user who isn't prepared to go through business support good luck.


Can anyone recommend a programmers' editor? I'm looking for a programmers' editor. I know Xcode and I use it for application programming but I'm looking for something that will:

Syntax highlight PHP, SQL, Javascript (including jQuery) and CSS not required but would be nice; also Lua, Python, and Perl
IntelliSense type stuff, start typing and get all the functions/objects/variables it could be and any parameters. Xcode does this well for C/C++/Objective-C but looking for languages that are listed above.
Would be nice if it worked with projects and not just files
Integrated with SVN, CVS, or GIT
Had upload-to-server functionality built in

I am aware of Coda but am looking for other options before I drop 100 bucks.

TextMate

Doesn't address all of your needs but I think it's pretty snaz.

These are some of my favorites from a front end designer's standpoint:

Coda
Espresso
Sublime Text
TextMate
Atom (my personal choice currently)


Can you install Google Chrome on an iOS Device Is it possible to install Google Chrome web browser on an iOS device?

You can now install Google Chrome on an iOS Device.

Do note that it does not use the Chrome Rendering engine, but uses the Safari webkit. The "killer feature" though is that it has syncing with your Google Account.

Google would have to first properly release a chrome app for android before even thinking about an iOS app. Would be shooting themselves in the foot otherwise.

Whether or not Apple would approve it would be another story.


Time Machine backup is slow. How can I speed it up? My time machine is backup is very slow. Connection is FireWire 800. Transfer is around 5 Mb/s or 0.5 MB/s, which seems slow. I've seen plenty of mention online of very slow Time Machine backups. What are some techniques or suggestions to speed this up?

I have:

Run the Disk Utility Repair tool. Everything is fine.
Disabled Spotlight on the remote disk

Searching for backupd in system.log gives the following:

13:29:33 Starting standard backup
13:29:33 Backing up to: /Volumes/BACKUP_DISK/Backups.backupdb
13:29:36 Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
13:29:36 Waiting for index to be ready (101)
13:29:55 Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
13:42:53 No pre-backup thinning needed: 39.84 GB requested (including padding), 71.68 GB available
13:42:53 Waiting for index to be ready (100)
14:23:37 Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
14:29:39 Copied 2.0 GB of 28.7 GB, 69560 of 113624 items
15:29:57 Copied 2.8 GB of 28.7 GB, 69560 of 113624 items
16:30:00 Copied 3.3 GB of 28.7 GB, 69560 of 113624 items
17:30:04 Copied 3.8 GB of 28.7 GB, 69560 of 113624 items
18:30:07 Copied 4.3 GB of 28.7 GB, 69560 of 113624 items
18:51:23 Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
19:30:07 Copied 4.8 GB of 28.7 GB, 69999 of 113624 items
20:30:19 Copied 5.4 GB of 28.7 GB, 69999 of 113624 items
21:30:28 Copied 6.2 GB of 28.7 GB, 69999 of 113624 items
21:38:36 Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!

On El Capitan to High Sierra OS - the io is throttled in some cases. You can review these steps in case they apply in your case. Not everyone sees this speed up, but it shouldn’t be hard to test and reverse if it doesn’t help you. Anyone on Mojave and newer should look to other fixes like testing a backup to a blank or erased drive.
Time Machine ridiculously slow after El Capitan upgrade
The throttle should be evident in observing the backupd usage of the filesystem:
sudo fs_usage backupd

Writing a command to /etc/sysctl.conf and then restarting should disable that throttle:
echo 'debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

Or without restarting:
sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0

You'll want to watch for other performance issues (extra CPU usage, other IO slowing, increased energy usage when backing up) after making that low level system tuning adjustment.

It could also be related to MRT process. For me, when I removed MRT process, backup speed becomes normal. By the way, MRT is sth called malware remove tool which comes with the security update and it will take lots of CPU to do scanning work. There are some articles on how to remove it.


Is there an OS X equivalent to the web debugging proxy Fiddler? I do web development on Windows for my day job, and I rely a lot on Fiddler, which is web debugging proxy.  What is an equivalent tool for OS X?

Stuff that's Free:

Burp Suite
WiireShark
ParosProxy
NetTool
LiveHTTPHeaders
Safari WebInspector Network Tab
FireBug

Stuff that Costs:

$1.99 -  HTTPClient
$15.00 - HTTP Scoop
$50.00 - CharlesProxy

There's a mac version now via mono.
Install Fiddler on Mac OSX
About the App

App name: Fiddler
App description: fiddler (App: Fiddler.app)
App website: http://www.telerik.com/fiddler
Install the App

Press Command+Space and type Terminal and press enter/return key.
Run in Terminal app:
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null ; brew install caskroom/cask/brew-cask 2> /dev/null
and press enter/return key. Wait for the command to finish.
Run:
brew cask install fiddler
Done! You can now use Fiddler.


Can't delete BOOTCAMP partition Bought a second hand iMac that had two partitions on the HDD. One for Mac, one for Windows. Using disk utility I erased the BOOTCAMP partition and formatted it to MacOS Extended (Journaled). All went well until I tried to remove the BOOTCAMP partition. The minus option is not enabled and I can't seem to fin any other way to delete it.

This is what I've tried:

Reboot on recovery mode and try to delete using disk utility. (Same result)
Use Bootcamp assistant to remove the partition. Didn't work as windows is gone from that partition.

How can delete it? I want to have just one partition.

I found the answer in this Apple Support Communities thread.

This is what I did:

In terminal executed diskutil list and the output was

#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            542.3 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s4
4:                  Apple_HFS BOOTCAMP                449.0 MB   disk0s4
5:                 Apple_Boot                         650.0 MB   disk0s5

Then I executed the following commands:

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC1 disk0s4
diskutil list

And the output was:

#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            542.3 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s4
4:                  Apple_HFS BC1                     449.0 MB   disk0s4

then:

diskutil eraseVolume fat32 BOOTCAMP disk0s4

After that I opened Boot Camp Assistant and I was able to restore the HD to a single partition.

The only way to do what you want with the Boot Camp partition is to do it with the Boot Camp Assistant!


How to disable restore/resume/saved-state for a specific application in Yosemite For most applications I like the OSX feature of remembering which documents were open.  But it drives me nuts in Preview.

In past versions of OSX there was a simple preference that could be altered for each application:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/177469/18486

This no longer works in Yosemite.  Is there an alternative?

After some playing around I found a workaround, not sure if there's something better:

Open Preview, close all documents, close Preview.
cd ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Preview.savedState
chmod -w .
chmod -w *

There will be similar folders for other applications.

As for the "similar folders" mentioned by Dalin, there are a bunch in ~/Library/Containers; but there may be another in ~/Library itself.

cd ~/Library
rm -rf 'Saved Application State'/*   # eliminate contents
chmod 500 'Saved Application State'  # make it read-only

This blocks automatic saving for other applications in this location.
You can find the other 'Saved Application State' folders as follows:

cd ~/Library/Containers
find . -name 'Saved *'


Screen capture app that captures a window even when minimized? I'm looking for a mac app that captures the screen (video) on specific app window (for example, Safari), and keeps recording what that window sees even when minimized to the dock for example.
Or even if a finder window is over it (without recording that finder window).

Anyone knows an app that can achieve what I'm talking about?

You are making the assumption that windows are always updated when minimized. This is not the case. This also applies to apps present on other spaces.

In other words, this is not possible.

use debut video capture software, works for mac, for the feature you want, not for windows though.


Gmail app on iphone shows notifications for 'everything' instead of just inbox Recently Gmail changed their web interface, and introduced several different inbox views.  I tried them, but quickly returned to the default, which shows only the number of new messages in Inbox, and ignores the other tabs.

Gmail on my phone made the switch over to showing everything, showing unread first, but the problem is it notifies for Everything.

Google claims that you can't change this from your phone, but changes made to your desktop web interface will propagate to the iphone after a few hours.

This isn't happening.  3 days now, I still get notifications for everything, and the badge on the icon shows total unread rather than inbox unread.

Stopping and restarting gmail made no difference.

Restarting my iphone made no difference.

Went to updates.  Loaded the latest update for the gmail app (Escaped -- er released -- 18 September)

Problem vanished.

Edit 2 days later:

Or seemed to.  It's back now.  I've reported this bug now both from the Gmail App and from the desktop app.  We will see if Google takes action.  While I'm waiting I'm looking for other apps tha understand gmail labels.


How to disable the dock on a specific display in Mavericks? I've just updated to Mavericks, and while I like having the dock on my 2 Landscape displays, my third portrait display is entirely unsuited to having a dock on it.

How can I suppress the dock from appearing on one of my 3 displays?

I can't find any way to allow the dock on 2 of the 3 displays.

But, there are some things you might do.

In Mavericks, the default is that each monitor has its own Space, an Apple way of saying that each monitor is its own independent desktop.

The implications of that are that your menu bar will be on all monitors but "disabled" on the monitors that you are not currently focused in. It also means that the dock will automatically change to the monitor that you are focused in.

You can change this setting so that the monitors are one Space, or one desktop. In "System Preferences" > "Mission Control", deselect the box for "Displays have separate Spaces".

Now, your menu bar and dock will only appear on one screen and will not move automatically.

To change which monitor is your primary monitor, go to "System Preferences" > "Displays". On the monitor that is your current primary monitor, a tab on the top of the window will say "Arrangement". There will see the side-by-side layout of all the monitors. Click and drag the white box on the top of your primary monitor to a different monitor to change which is your primary.

The new primary will have your menu bar and dock.

Note: This assumes you have "Displays have separate Spaces" turned on.

The Dock only appears on one display at a time. To move it between displays, simply hold your mouse pointer at the bottom of the screen you want until the dock appears.

(The screen with the Dock on it will also be the one with the ⌘⇥ app switcher.)


Finder error after taking screen shot, apple button not working either So I've had this macbook pro for maybe 4-5 years and I think it's on its way out. Startup is sluggish as hell, I cannot open EVE Online Launcher or Steam at all, Microsoft Word hangs on startup, Chrome sometimes beachballs and I can't even open the right-side options menu, and I cannot click the Apple icon on the upper left without spinning-ball every single time (hence why I cannot even check what version I'm on!)

I've reset NVRAM, but it fixed nothing.

Is there anything left I can do that doesn't involve replacing physical components?

EDIT: Taking a screenshot made Finder go unresponsive.

EDIT2: after another crash from clicking the apple button

OK, lets do this.

In Terminal run launchctl list to see all programs running.

Then anything that does not start with com.apple....

Quit or Delete and make sure it is not in you Login items (automatically starts when you log in)

Check your CPU load and Memory load in Activity monitor.

Gaming sites like Steam might run limits on your GPU.

Lets close and quit all 3D party apps, like coconutBattery and others.

The goal here is obvious. Free you OS X and see how it runs then.

Since your Finder just crashed, Open the Console and select Errors and Faults, then take screen shot and publish.


How to block certain IP/MAC Address that access your WiFi Network ? I can see people access into my Wifi by going into AirportUtility
Here is a list of people that are connected to Wifi at the moment.

There're 2 of them in there that I'm not sure - how they get in there ?

Goals

I would like to both of them out.
I also want to block a certain MAC Address for future access.

What I have tried

I've been playing around with the AirPort Utility, and all I can do is restrict the time access to a certain MAC address.

I also came across an app called Little Snitch, but that not exactly what I want.

Is there any Mac App that let me block/allow a certain IP address ?

On your airport extreme you can block certain mac address for good with "No Access".

In your airports configuration go to the "Network" tab and check "Enable Access Control", then click on "Timed Access Control".

Then on the top add the mac address you want to prohibit and give it a description.  Towards the bottom, On the "Wireless Access Time" drop down select "No Access" and save.

Confirmed this works on a 5th generation airport running version 7.6.4

I'm not sure of any Mac programs, but try calling up your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and they might be able to block those devices. It's worth a shot.


How can I change this name? This xue drives me crazy, I don't know where it come from, how can I change it?

It's the current user's home directory. It should correspond to the currently logged in user (shown in System Preferences > System > Accounts). The name xue is the short name for the currently logged-in user.

If it's on your Mac and it isn't you and you don't recognise it, then you'd have to wonder who has an account on your Mac that you don't know about. Did you buy it secondhand maybe?

You can rename user accounts - see Apple's support website for more info.

That is your home folder. Since no other users are shown it must be that you named it that way.

To change it:

Open system preferences

Users

Unlock it (bottom left)

ctrl click (same as right click) on the account

Click on advanced options

Change the account name

Change the Home directory field to match the new name of the folder in /Users.

Click OK, and close the System Preferences screen.

Log out of the current administrator account, and into the original (renamed) account.

Here is a sample from my computer, only change the yellow marked fields, do not change anything else!


How can I permanently force Xerox secure printing? My clients are printing direct to a network printer (no print server).

Xerox have confirmed that the Secure Print Only option is only available in Windows, so I am looking at editing .plists, Applescript, Automator and anything else that can allow me to force my client Macs to default to secure printing.

Setting a preset only saves the 'system' settings, not the Xerox features. CUPs has an option to set defaults for the secure printing job type, but not, is seems, to set the default job type.

They suggested editing the PPD file would work but they will not support it. This is outside of my area of expertise but I can get it developed if pointed in the right direction.

A standalone automator app or system service would also be a suitable work around. Might we be able to enforce "secure printing" from OS X?

In Windows there is an opportunity to save individual, but permanent default settings for each application.  I'm sure the same option is there for Mac users as well.

Open the print driver settings.  Do the necessary adjustemnts to black-white vs color, one-sided or two-sided printing eg, and choose secure print.  The before pressing "print" choose the "save print defualts" ....  (I'm nt a Mac user so I cannot say where precisely that option is found.)


iPhone connect to internet over WiFi using PPPoE Is there a way to connect my iPhone 4S to the Internet with WiFi when the connection is using the PPPoE protocol?

Do you mean to connect to the wireless router itself and get internet access this way?

According to Apple Support Forums,

  Generally people will have a router establish the PPPoE connection and then share it with the devices on the local network.

Do you have a computer or another device already connected to the local network? If so, you might be able to share the connection off one of these devices as a separate Wi-Fi connection.

You could try using Connectify to redistribute the computer's connection over WiFi, not sure if it works on OS X though, check it out: google connectify.


Does my Air have malware if windows pop up when I click on any link? Every time I click to open a link, other windows start opening. They all want to sell me Detox your Mac or have warnings about how my Mac is at risk or infected.

How can I check for malware?

You can check for malware and also make sure that you don't have some known adware installed:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT203987

The second link is quite long, so feel free to point out one line or a paragraph that don't make sense if you need a hand digesting it and then implementing the fixes.

I've also checked into http://www.thesafemac.com/arg/ and their product free but donation supported product Adware Medic and the program and site are valuable and honest tools for fighting malware and adware. I've chipped in some cash to help them continue to make information clear and available.

Have you installed any free programs or any open source programs? If so, they may contain adware. The website distributes its software for free, but bundles it with malicious files/adware and are payed per install. Even secure websites can sometimes acquire malware, so you should always scan whatever you download.

When you locate the free program, Google it and find out how to completely uninstall it, for some malicious files cannot be removed by deleting them, as they spread. Install some antivirus software and keep yourself protected regularly. Don't take a free program, they are very invasive.


Second partition to keep data safe? I am new to Mac and I don't know very much about the operating system. I am used to Windows where I had a C partition for the OS and other partitions for data. When I wanted a fresh install I only formatted the C drive.

What is the best method to use this on Mac? I don't want to use an external HDD or a stick – I want to have them on my 256 GB SSD. I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose my photos and videos so please advice me.

It is rare to need to reformat the operating system only part of your Mac.

Recommended: Use one partition

I believe the overwhelming majority of Mac users have a single partition on their internal drive. This lone partition is used to store everything: operating system, applications, and documents.

The UNIX-like file layout does a good job of keeping all these files organised and separate. With OS X 10.11, new security measures have further isolated the core system files from your own files.

Back Up and Use Time Machine

In order to avoid loosing photos and documents, attach an external drive and turn on Time Machine for that drive. Time Machine is macOS's built-in back up mechanism. This will protect you from most problems.

In the worst case, you can wipe your Mac's drive, re-install macOS, and restore your documents with Time Machine.

Upgrades and Recovery

Upgrades of macOS only update the operating system part itself, leaving both your data and user-installed applications untouched. The same applies for reinstallation of macOS which can be done from the Recovery Partition without touching your data.

Optional: Isolating your documents

As a developer, I do separate my operating system and applications from my user documents. This is a habit from using earlier versions of macOS and before virtual machines made testing easier.

This approach is only a real benefit, if you use a separate physical device for the two partitions.

See Macworld's article Keeping Mac OS and data on separate drives for how to set this up.

Hy you can use disk utility, go to application -> utilities -> disk utility.

Héré you can find your machintosh disk select it and click on partition then you click on sign plus on bottom of new window, give it a name and size and create it.


How can I sleep the display from Terminal? I'd like to be able to turn my screen off from command line.

I know there's the keyboard shortcut ctrl+⇧+⏏ but I want to do it from a shell script or remotely.

Is there a way?

In OS X 10.9, you can simply do pmset displaysleepnow. This will immediately turn off your display without changing any of your settings or putting the entire host to sleep.

Escalated privileges don't seem to be required (at least with recent versions of OS X), but if you get a message about inadequate privileges, you could do sudo pmset displaysleepnow.

Based on feedback from commenters, this is not available in OS X 10.8 or earlier.

No need extra app, just use tell application "Finder" to sleep