How to remove old device from Safari iCloud Tabs? I returned a MacBook to Apple Store, however apparently I forgot to sign out of iCloud and the latest tabs I was browsing still appear in Safari iCloud Tabs of my new MacBook and existing iPad.

I removed the device from icloud.com -> Find My iPhone but it didn't work. Tabs list from my old computer is still there and I am trying to remove it from my devices list. I appreciate any ideas.

From Apple's iCloud Tabs support article (emphasis added):

  If you can't access the device that shared the tab, the tab will automatically be cleared from the list after 14 days if the tab isn't updated.

So, any leftover tabs should be gone after two weeks.

Read this Article.
Very Hopeful

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-close-safari-tabs-on-another-icloud-device/


Unable to use gpt to restore efi partition I accidentally deleted my efi partition, which I now know is bad news bears. I found a guide here to restore it without losing data, but even though I'm booting from usb and have unmounted all partitions, I'm still getting the error gpt remove: unable to open device "disk0": resource busy.

Everything I'm reading says to boot from an OSX usb installer disk, and use diskutil unmountdisk disk0 and then gpt will work.  I've definitely done both of these things but it's still telling me the disk is mounted...

Could someone recommend anything else to try? Much thanks

I figured it out, my hd was getting mounted under Volumes and had to be removed with diskutil unmount /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

Don't know why unmountdisk wasn't fixing this but whatever

There are two different kind of boot modes in computers, Legacy BIOS-based and Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). UEFI is the main booting mechanism used recent computers, while old computers uses BIOS. UEFI mode requires the system to be installed on a GUID partition table (GPT) disk, and BIOS the master boot record (MBR) disk. Windows won’t allow you to restore system from UEFI based computer to bios computer, and vice versa. Some UEFI based computer supports both UEFI boot mode and Legacy BIOS-compatibility mode, so this error may happen even when you restore system backup to the original computer being backed up.


iOS9 Email Push Still Not Working There seems to be a general iphone issue with mail.app not pushing correctly atm. I've tried every trick I could find online, but to no avail.

What I've done so far:

Reset network connections. Did nothing.
I've deleted and re-set up my email accounts in mail.app. Did nothing.
All of the notification settings are correct, including push, and background update is on.
Re-entered email account passwords, nothing.
Both mail.app and gmail.app refuse to actually push mail and notify me unless I manually force a refresh. Even fetch doesn't work.

I'm not sure why this happened all of the sudden. I updated to 9.1 couple weeks ago, but the issue started a couple days ago. It's terrible for work, I'll get emails 2-3 hrs later when I randomly check.

Any help is appreciated.

this worked for me

Go to Settings >> Notifications.
Scroll down and find Mail section. Tap on it.
Select your mail app. For example, I am using Exchange.
Turn on “Show in Notification Center” and “Show on Lock Screen”.

See here: ios 9 notifications not working

Wait until the new iOS comes or update to iOS 9.2.1,ok?


Why does my dock keep moving back to my other monitor? I have a larger, external monitor connected to my MacBook Pro and have arranged it such that the dock is in the external monitor (via System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement, by dragging the white bar to the larger screen). This works fine, except for the fact that every now and then, the dock will suddenly shift back to my MacBook screen, but when I open up Displays to change this back, the white bar is still on the external monitor. So I have to drag it to the smaller screen, and then drag it back to the external monitor.

It's a minor issue, obviously, but I've noticed that it has been happening more and more frequently and it's getting quite annoying. Perhaps there's something I've been doing unintentionally for this to happen?

I'm using Mavericks, 10.9.5.

You can summon the Dock on a different display by moving the cursor to the bottom of the desired display, and then continuing moving down. It may be possible that this is occurring when you inadvertently perform that action.

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

I also found this 'feature' annoying as you expect the Dock to be on one screen then you accidentally move the mouse to the bottom of the second screen and the Dock moves across. The easiest way to get it back is to move the mouse to the bottom of the screen you want the dock on. Sometimes you have to move it up then back down to get it to move.

Personally I found two options that helped me with this:

At work I have my external monitor on a stand that sits behind my MacBook and arrange the screens so that the external monitor is just higher than my Macbook Screen then in the settings move the screen layout so they sit on top of each other. In this layout only one screen has a bottom as the external monitor is an extension to the Macbook Screen, thus stopping the Dock from moving. This layout also saves on desk space if you have a narrow desk.
At home I use a monitor side by side but set the dock to auto hide, then when I need to get to the Dock I just scroll down to the bottom of whatever screen my mouse is on to get the Dock. Because the Dock is always hidden and comes on when I want it I don't seem to find it annoying like I do when it is fixed at the bottom of one screen.


All my Folder and Application icons disappeared in Finder I've been using Yosemite happily since it was released, but yesterday all my icons disappeared. See the attached screenshots. My dock only shows the icon for the Finder, and within Finder itself none of the icons for applications or folders show up. The only thing that seems to work is thumbnail previews for things like Word documents, PDFs and image files.

These are some things I tried already:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/* and sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/*
rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db && killall -HUP Finder Dock
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
I tried booting in Safe Mode, the problem persists there.
I even tried reinstalling the OS and for some reason the problem still exists.
Unfortunately I can't log in as a different user, this is a company mac and my login is our network login.

I'm at a total loss. What can I do? The only thing I can think of that I changed recently was uninstalling an app called Bitcasa by manually removing some of its application files, including /Applications/Bitcasa.app, ~/Library/Preferences/com.bitcasa, ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.bitcasa.Bitcasa.plist, ~/Library/ScriptingAdditions/BitcasaIntegration.osax, ~/Library/Caches/com.bitcasa.Bitcasa, and ~/Library/Application Support/com.bitcasa.Bitcasa.

I was having a similar problem--not with icons in the dock--but Illustrator icons in Finder list view would just display as blank white icons instead of the Illustrator CC icons.  Using the info in this thread, I showed all hidden files.  This can be done using the XtraFinder app.  Once all hidden files were shown, I went to the path below and moved the store.index file to the desktop and logged out and logged back in.  The store.index file re-created itself and all of my Illustrator icons were back.  You can delete the one on the desktop and empty the trash before once again hiding all the hidden files through XtraFinder.  Solved!

HD/private/var/folders/*/*/C/com.apple.iconservices/store.index

The asterisks represent random folder names that are different for each computer.  The last asterisk may have more than one folder.  Find the C folder that is not locked.

What worked for me (on 10.10.5) what to logout, login as a different user, and then log back in as me.


How to play every album of an artist in sequence with the new music app? With the old music app I was able to select an artist and listen to every music by album. Now it orders the musics alphabetically and unless I want to hear the same music N times I have to use shuffle.

Is is possible to just select an artist and play every album with making a playlist?

There's no way to do this natively without playlists or queuing, but Picky (https://appsto.re/us/e-uOD.i) can do it.

My iPhone is running iOS 9, and things are little different from previous version of iOS and the native music app. here i want to listen to Paramore, play 1 song and then click the three dots at the end of every album/singles and select add next or play next so that it will play as you want them orderly.


SMC reset to fix battery not working, but cant be sure SMC reset has taken place I have had a new battery in my mid 2012 15" macbook pro running 10.11.6

The battery health as monitored through a battery health app downloaded from the mac app store has been deteriorating ever since i installed it and after about 3 months the battery is saying "Service Battery"

This doesn't tell the full picture though, as if it use my Mac once i get the "low battery 9 minutes remaining" warning, it will go on for hours without cutting out.

Ive been told i need to do an SMC reset to address the issue, but each time i do it following Apples guides for laptops with a removable battery, it dosnt fix anything?

How can I know that an SMC reset has taken place, can it be seen in the logs ? Or can i do an SMC reset through some kind of GUI tool which will give me feedback instead of the standard way which i cant be sure has worked.

Here is an output from About this mac > System Info > Power

Model Information:
  Serial Number:    REDACTED
  Manufacturer: SMP
  Device Name:  REDACTED
  Pack Lot Code:    0
  PCB Lot Code: 0
  Firmware Version: 2
  Hardware Revision:    00aa
  Cell Revision:    2
  Charge Information:
  Charge Remaining (mAh):   220
  Fully Charged:    No
  Charging: No
  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):   3918
  Health Information:
  Cycle Count:  81
  Condition:    Service Battery
  Battery Installed:    Yes
  Amperage (mA):    -1943
  Voltage (mV): 10877

System Power Settings:

  AC Power:
  System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 3
  Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):   0
  Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    3
  Wake on AC Change:    No
  Wake on Clamshell Open:   Yes
  Wake on LAN:  Yes
  AutoPowerOff Delay:   14400
  AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1
  Display Sleep Uses Dim:   Yes
  GPUSwitch:    2
  Hibernate Mode:   3
  PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep:   0
  Standby Delay:    4200
  Standby Enabled:  0
  Battery Power:
  System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
  Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):   0
  Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    2
  Wake on AC Change:    No
  Wake on Clamshell Open:   Yes
  AutoPowerOff Delay:   14400
  AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1
  Current Power Source: Yes
  Display Sleep Uses Dim:   Yes
  GPUSwitch:    2
  Hibernate Mode:   3
  Reduce Brightness:    Yes
  Standby Delay:    4200
  Standby Enabled:  0

Here is an output from the command system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -i "charge information" -A 10

Charge Information:
          Charge Remaining (mAh): 234
          Fully Charged: No
          Charging: No
          Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 3918
      Health Information:
          Cycle Count: 81
          Condition: Service Battery
      Battery Installed: Yes
      Amperage (mA): -2579
      Voltage (mV): 10890

It's quite possible you have a defective battery, bad cable or power handling chip issue on the logic board itself.  From the output you posted, here's what we know.

81 cycles and FCC of 3918 mAh is way out of specification
The Voltage and charge measurement that you have 234 mAh (mili-amp hours) remaining
It's showing a draw of approximately 2.5A (battery is being drained)

The SMC can only accumulate how much battery capacity is left by measuring the current power against the current draw and known full capacity.  In this case, it's measuring that you're out of power and indicating your battery needs to be serviced.

There's no "dipstick" that can give you the actual charge, the SMC must calculate it and from the data it's getting from the battery, it thinks it's failing even though it continues to work.

Your best bet is to replace the battery (it's probably still under warranty) and still more likely to be the cause if you were careful with the cables and reseated them.

Reviewing your Battery report:

Considering you installed it as "new" 3 months ago, unfortunately it behaves as 3- 5 Years old.

The Full Charge Capacity (mAh) value is down to 3918 (<50%) !! which is the absolute indicator of battery life, not so the cycle count.

(new battery comes with ~8200 mAh that gradually over 5 Years goes down), once it reaches below 50% you will get the Service Battery.

Replace it.

You current consumption Amperage (mA): -2579 has nothing to do with anything, it is a variable that changes depending on the load.

If you plug in the Charger that number will go positive. (= Charging)

Also the remaining charge has nothing to do with battery life.

SMC can not read the battery values directly. There is a chip (IC) integrated with Battery called a SMBus chip or Gas Gauge or even Dipstick. It reads the analog values from the batter, coverts to digital and sends that to the SMC.

That is how it is possible for SMC to know the cycle count (and other values) even when you move the battery from one Mac to another.

An SMBus battery contains permanent and temporary data. The battery manufacturer program the permanent data into the battery, which includes battery ID, battery type, manufacturer’s name, serial number and date of manufacture. The temporary data is added during use and contains cycle count, usage pattern and maintenance requirements.

To your second question ...How to see if SMC reset worked.

While doing it, watch the MagSafe plug light, it will briefly flickers if the reset was successful.


Number of antennas inside an iPhone 7 I would like to know how many antennas are inside an iPhone 7 for the 4G connection?

Is it possible to have multiple antennas on an iPhone to make the received signal stronger and give better data throughput?

Thanks

Theres nothing you can do to improve significantly the signal, as the iPhone doesn't support hardware or software upgrades that can improve this side of things.

Here's an example:

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


Why does Safari always hang? I use Safari as my browser, but I've found that it frequently hangs for 20, 30 seconds (sometimes longer), often times when I wake it up from sleep and/or when I open a new tab.

Though I'm not sure it would be helpful, the next time it does it I'll see if I can sample the process and report back with the results. In the meantime, is there something I can try? I'm running on a mid-2007 MacBook so, while I think I have enough processing power (2x2.16Ghz) and memory (2GB), I suspect it's a disk issue.

Is there something I can do to reduce disk usage? Should I clear my cache (this isn't a problem), my history (I want to keep this if possible) or both?

edit: Is there any way to determine what plugins I have installed? I have RescueTime and Evernote, so either of them could be the culprit, but I know that there are programs that like to install hidden extensions, so that could be the problem as well.

By the way, here's that sampling output summary - I've cut out the call tree as it was way too long to post:

Total number in stack (recursive counted multiple, when >=5):
        21       _pthread_start
        21       thread_start
        7       __semwait_signal
        7       mach_msg
        7       mach_msg_trap
        7       pthread_cond_wait$UNIX2003
        6       CFRunLoopRunSpecific
        5       CFRunLoopRunInMode

Sort by top of stack, same collapsed (when >= 5):
        __semwait_signal        2058
        mach_msg_trap        2030
        semaphore_wait_signal_trap        589
        select$DARWIN_EXTSN        588
        0x0        294
        __workq_ops        294
        semaphore_timedwait_signal_trap        294
        kevent        293
        pread$UNIX2003        116
        fsync$UNIX2003        50
        WebCore::BinaryPropertyListSerializer::appendStringObject(WebCore::String const&)        42
        WTF::HashMap<WebCore::String, unsigned long, WebCore::StringHash, WTF::HashTraits<WebCore::String>, WTF::HashTraits<unsigned long> >::get(WebCore::String const&) const        19
        write$UNIX2003        19
        __dtoa        15
        WebCore::IntegerArrayHash::equal(WebCore::IntegerArray const&, WebCore::IntegerArray const&)        13
        WebCore::String::characters() const        11
        WTF::HashMap<WebCore::IntegerArray, unsigned long, WebCore::IntegerArrayHash, WebCore::IntegerArrayHashTraits, WTF::HashTraits<unsigned long> >::get(WebCore::IntegerArray const&) const        7
        __memcpy        7
        WebCore::String::isEmpty() const        6
        __sfvwrite        6
        WebCore::BinaryPropertyListSerializer::addAggregateObjectReference(unsigned long)        5
        __vfprintf        5
Sample analysis of process 18283 written to file /dev/stdout

In my book, Adobe Flash is always the first culprit for issues with browser stability and responsiveness. Try installing ClickToFlash and see if that helps things.

Go to Java Preferences -> Disable java-SE

Then try to open webpage in Safari again.


How can I un-trim a trimmed voice memo? I recently recorded an interview on my iPhone 4, however i trimmed it (before syncing with my computer) and shared the trimmed section with a friend. Is there any way I can get the full voice memo back?

Today I used the free software iBrowse on my Mac (PC version also available) to view my iPhone 5 file sytem. I opened the Recordings folder and found all my Voice Memos.

The interesting part is, a Voice Memo I had Trimmed and sent to someone via iMessage, was there in both its original filename and full size, as well as another copy with .trimmed appended to its filename, evidently this is the shortened version I sent my friend.

So if you use iBrowse to view your Recordings, there's a good chance you'll find your original Voice Memo inside there.

PS: I am using iOS 6.1.4 on my iPhone 5.

No. You cannot get the full version back.


Not able to search installed Apps anymore I use iphone 6s. whenever I need to run an app on iphone, I just search for the app. (using flashlight).

Off late I have noticed that whenever I search for an app, it doesn't show the installed app anymore.

I am pretty sure that this earlier the search on iphone used to show installed apps as part of search results.

Now it only shows
* suggested websites
* wikipedia
* twitter
* itunes store

Why did this behavior change?

I was able to solve it by reinstalling IOS on my iphone. It wasn't a very good solution, but sadly nothing else worked for me.

Apple is not very different from Microsoft after all.


Dual boot: I cannot boot in OS-X, after installing Linux (Debian) After swapping the DVD drive with an SSD, I installed Debian Linux on it. I left the original SSD with OS-X untouched.

After a reboot, OS-X (El Capitan) started.
After another reboot, pressing Command-R, Linux started.
After yet another reboot, without pressing any key, Linux started by default, without the option to boot OS-X.

How can I have the option to boot in OS-X again? Do I have to set grub somehow?

I am using a MacBook Pro 17" 2009 with the original drive running Mac OS X El Capitain.

This is the output of diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            250.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI                         248.5 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Linux Swap                         16.0 GB    disk1s2
   3:           Linux Filesystem                         150.0 GB   disk1s3
   4:           Linux Filesystem                         300.0 GB   disk1s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS shared                  20.0 GB    disk1s5

I installed debian on my computer. I probably did not choose the same configuration as you did. The output from diskutil list disk1 is shown below.

/dev/disk1 (external, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +109.3 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI NO NAME                 536.9 MB   disk1s1
   2:           Linux Filesystem                         30.0 GB    disk1s2
   3:                 Linux Swap                         1.1 GB     disk1s3
   4:           Linux Filesystem                         77.7 GB    disk1s4

The output above shows the label on my disk1s1 is NO NAME. What concerns me about your output from diskutil list is that there is no label given for disk1s1. Your comment states you can not mount this volume. My conclusion is the FAT32 volume was never created in this partition. One possible explanation is your installation of debian never completed correctly.

Another possibility is you have not included all the steps you preformed before posting your question. For example, it is fairly unlikely the debian installer added partition with the identifier of disk1s5.

If you had installed Debian correctly to your second internal disk, then you have to preform the following steps in macOS to finish the installation. Here, I assume 64 bit version of Debian was installed to use the EFI boot method.

The steps below copy the boot file for grub to the correct location in the EFI partition. This is not only a requirement for the Mac Startup Manager, but is also defined in the UEFI specification.

From a Terminal application window, enter the command diskutil mount disk1s1. A new device representing this partition should appear in the Finder application. If you view the contents of this volume a Finder application window, you should see the same as in the image below.

Using the Finder application, navigate to this device.
Create a folder labeled boot in the folder EFI.
Copy the file grubx64.efi found in the EFI/debian folder to the EFI/boot folder.
Rename the  grubx64.efi file in the EFI/boot folder to bootx64.efi.
From a Terminal application window, enter the command diskutil unmount disk1s1.

If you can boot to the correctly installed Debian operating system, then the above steps can be replaced by commands given below. These commands need to be entered in a Debian Terminal window.

  Note: To enter these commands, you will have to know the root users password.

su
mkdir  /boot/efi/efi/boot
cp  /boot/efi/efi/debian/grubx64.efi  /boot/efi/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
exit

Once the changes are made, you can do the following to choose an operating system.

Start or restart your Mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager appears.
Select the icon for the desired operating system. Debian will appear with label EFI Boot.
To boot the desired operating system, select the arrow below the chosen icon .

  Note: If you hold down the control key while selecting the arrow, the chosen operating system will be come the default.

To boot back in OSX, at startup: press [Alt] key.
To boot Linux, at start up: press [Command]+R.


Change EXIF meta-data of multiple images in single click I ran into big problem yesterday night.

I took out my old digital camera, and started using it without setting current date and time.

All photos clicked now have date as Jan 01, 2009

I want to change the date and time (and other EXIF image meta-data) of multiple images.

Please recommend some software which can process on multiple images in single click/go.

ExifTool is the one to go for.

It has a time shift feature that allows you to shift the dates.

    Date/Time Shift Feature

  Have you ever forgotten to set the date/time on your digital camera
  before taking a bunch of pictures? ExifTool has a time shift feature
  that makes it easy to apply a batch fix to the timestamps of the
  images (ie. change the "Date Picture Taken" reported by Windows
  Explorer). Say for example that your camera clock was reset to
  2000:01:01 00:00:00 when you put in a new battery at
  2005:11:03 10:48:00. Then all of the pictures you took subsequently
  have timestamps that are wrong by 5 years, 10 months, 2 days, 10 hours
  and 48 minutes. To fix this, put all of the images in the same
  directory ("DIR") and run exiftool:

  exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal+=5:10:2 10:48:0" DIR

  The example above changes only the DateTimeOriginal tag, but any
  writable date or time tag can be shifted, and multiple tags may be
  written with a single command line. Commonly, in JPEG images, the
  DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate values must all be
  changed. For convenience, a shortcut tag called AllDates has been
  defined to represent these three tags. So, for example, if you forgot
  to set your camera clock back 1 hour at the end of daylight savings
  time in the fall, you can fix the images with:

  exiftool -AllDates-=1 DIR

  See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl (download in PDF format) for
  details about the syntax of the time shift string.

Some things to note:

Test on a small batch of copies first until you get the date syntax you want.

I suggest you copy or move your images to a new folder first.
And run the command on that directory.

If you run exiftool on a directory it will look in sub directories and modify any image files it finds.

Exiftool WILL automatically append '_original' on the end of your original files and create a new copy for you with the modifications.

You can override this by using the '-overwrite_original' option.

exiftool  -overwrite_original -AllDates+="0:2:1 10:48:0" /Users/UserName/Desktop/testFolder

This example shifts forward   0 years, 2 months, 1 day,  10 hours, 48 minutes, 0 seconds.

Using a single set of time shifts i.e instead of "0:2:1 10:48:0" you use "10:48:0". Exiftool will see this as hh:mm:ss.
And you can omit 0 where you do not want to put a shift.

exiftool  -overwrite_original AllDates+="9::" /Users/UserName/Desktop/testFolder

This example shifts forward 9 hours.

   exiftool  -overwrite_original -AllDates-="9::" /Users/UserName/Desktop/testFolder

This example shifts back 9 hours.

Notice AllDates-="  and AllDates+="  , one has a plus one has a minus.

Also Remember you are shifting time not stamping a time stamp.

So if my original date was :
2011:07:21 01:41:29

and I used exiftool  -overwrite_original -AllDates-="24::" /Users/UserName/Desktop/testFolder

Then I would get : 2011:07:20 01:41:29

Do download the PDF with the syntax

And make sure you look at the difference with the options -overwrite_original_in_place  and -overwrite_original
Documentation

I used EXIF Pilot with Batch Edit Plugin when I had this issue. Unfortunately, it's Windows-only.

ExifTool was recommended to me and I see they have an OSX package but I haven't used it.


iPadOS is corrupting files when copying from/to an external drive I am a photographer and recently switched to a full iPad Pro 2020 setup, so I can edit my pictures on the go. Since SD cards tend to fail, I would also like to use my iPad Pro to backup the cards to an external SSD drive. A simple copy/paste from one drive (SD) to another (SSD) via the iPad.
However, I noticed that after importing RAW and JPEG files from the SD card to the iPad internal memory, some of the files seemed corrupted: RAW files couldn't be read by Lightroom, and JPEG files were half black or grey.
A couple of days ago, the same thing happened in the other way round. I processed RAW files in Lightroom for iPad, and when copying the processed JPEG to the external SSD, and viewing them on my PC, about 10% of them were completely trashed:

So I made a test, that I hope can be reproduced by someone. I'd love to have some feedback or even a solution to this issue. It's really disappointing that the iPad can't handle a copy/paste without corrupting the files...
First, I took a sample picture and made 500 copies on the external SSD. To be sure they're all exact copies, I used PowerShell on Windows to check the file hash. As expected, they're all the same:

Then, I transferred the 500 copies to the iPad's internal storage, using the "Copy" and "Paste" function in the app Files.
I renamed the folder in which the pictures are, copied it and pasted it back to the external SSD.
Finally, with the SSD plugged to my PC, I checked the file hash of the 500 files copied from the iPad, and indeed, some of them are corrupted, as you can see below (take Test (613).png for instance):

I am using an iPad Pro 2020 12.9", with the latest iPadOS 14, and the native app Files to do the transfer. My external SSD is formatted in exFat. My PC is the latest Windows 10.
I also tried with other kinds of devices: SD cards, cameras, USB thumb sticks, external SSD, SD card readers, USB-C hubs, even changed the cables, that all work perfectly with my PC, and never failed me. It's really coming from the iPad.
After some research, I saw a lot of complaints (slow transfer speed, mainly) that seem to be linked to the format of the external drive, and the fact that iPadOS seems to prefer APFS file format. But APFS isn't an option for people like me, who are using a desktop PC. Plus, the format of my SD cards are set by my camera, in that case, exFAT.
Finally, though I can understand speed may vary depending on the format of the drive -- corrupting the files is something that shouldn't happen, no matter what format I'm using. Especially for something as basic as importing photographs from an SD card...
At this point I don't know what to do, every time I try to copy/paste something, some files get corrupted. I would be grateful if somebody could give me some pointers, perhaps a solution, or simply confirm the issue by reproducing my test somehow.

So, I have same issue. Turns out it’s fault of files app. I have corrupted files only when I try to copy from iPad.
But there is a way, you can try FileBrowserGO app. Just drag folder from files and land it on disk in FileBrowserGO app. It works without any issues for me, and it’s way faster to!


Recovery HD partition resized (now 300GB) I recently deleted my bootcamp partition that was 300GB and then tried to resize my Macintosh HD partition to my full 500GB hard drive, but after I tried to do this, instead my Recovery HD took the 300GB from bootcamp so now I am stuck with this:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            199.2 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             300.6 GB   disk0s3

Is there any way I can resize the partitions so that I have one Macintosh HD partition at about 500GB and the Recovery HD the normal size? (About 650MB). I have tried using the following command in terminal :

diskutil resizeVolume /dev/disk0s3 650M

but I get the following message when I try to do that:

Unable to resize because file system volume format does not support resizing

Any Ideas? I have 300GB just sitting idle because of this currently. Thank you

I found this site http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/30/deleting-the-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-recovery-hd-partition/

Which explains that you erase the Recovery HD with this command "diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ Blank /dev/disk0s4"

And merge it with this command "diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ Lion disk0s3 disk0s4"

Before erasing the Recovery HD

After merging it to my macOS partition, which i used Disk Utility to do that.


How can I tell what kind of iPod Touch I have if the case can't be removed? I'm buying a gift that requires an iPod 3 or newer and I'm trying to get my brother to tell me what kind of iPod he has, but he is unable to open the case it's in.

How can he, using software, tell me what kind of iPod Touch he has?

Plug the device into any computer with either iTunes or the iPhone configuration utility and it will tell you the model, serial number and much more about the device. Both software packages run on Mac and Windows and are a free download from Apple.

An alternate method of determining whether the Phillips Hue app will run is to have them download that app since the App store includes built in checks to ensure the device meets the app's minimum requirements. I could see how this might not be ideal if part of the gift is to be a surprise that downloading the app might spoil.

If you can look at other physical features of the device it is possible to tell.Start by looking to see if it has a camera (front or back). If it does you are fine because only the 4th and 5th generation (the larger 16:9 one) iPod Touches have cameras. If it is a 64GB model ("Settings" -> "General" -> "About" -> "Capacity", will be not quite 64 but close) then it is at least a 3rd generation. If all else fails go to "Settings" -> "General" -> "About" -> "Model", the 3rd generation's numbers end in 086LL
, 008LL, or 011LL.


How can I "delete" the last word, using iOS dictation feature? iOS dictation is a great feature, which mostly works both for Siri and for apps supporting an onscreen keyboard.

However: is there a voice command I can use to backspace or delete the last word?  I found a good guide here, but there is no delete command: http://www.siriuserguide.com/siri-dictation-guide/

It doesn't seem like it is possible.

The closest I have seen is to use 'shake to undo' which will then select your entire last phrase/sentence. It's then possible to adjust that selection & delete as required.

Not what you wanted, I'm aware.

"delete this" works for me using mac dictation


How to prevent the application launched in Terminal from undesirably exiting? I launch applications from the Terminal with commands like this one :

/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail &

The important part is the &.

For Unix / Linux / Solaris :

I have learned at school that adding the & makes the program live on his own.
I strongly remember launching a command like xeyes & and having the program running safe even after I close the shell.

On Mac OS X (Unix inside) :

I launch an app with & and I close the Terminal window : the application exits !
Why does this undesirable behaviour happen on Mac OS X ?
How can this be fixed ?

The "standard" way of accomplishing what you want to accomplish (on OS X as well as on Linux, FreeBSD or other systems) is to use the command nohup:

nohup program &

This will start program, which will run in the background relative to the shell because of the & - and will ignore hangup signals due to the nohup command.

This way the program will continue running even though you close the shell. It doesn't matter if you're closing the shell because you're closing Terminal.app, or you're closing the shell because you are disconnecting from a ssh connection to the computer, or similar.

I have found a solution : fighting evil with evil.

I launch my app with this kind of command :

/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail & exit

The shell exits at once. And the app survives, even after I close the Terminal window.

But this solution is not very handy.


Is it possible make Preview not enhance thin lines? Some PDF renderers "enhance" thin lines, i.e. make them thick enough to be clearly visible, no matter how far one zooms out.  Other PDF renderers do not artificially thicken thin lines.

Adobe Acrobat Reader allows one to choose between these two behaviors via an item in the application preferences.

The Preview application always enhances thin lines, and does not seem to provide an option to suppress this behavior.

Is there some hidden setting on the Mac which will prevent thin lines from being enhanced? (e.g. "defaults write ... ")

Preview's preferences used to contain a setting "Smooth text and line art", but it was removed from the app (around Sierra/High Sierra, I think, but can't be sure).

The plist data key associated with the preference was PVPDFAntiAliasOption. It's possible that this key will still work. You may want to try:

defaults write -app 'Preview' PVPDFAntiAliasOption 0

and then relaunch Preview. If this doesn't work, then Apple have indeed decided to permanently hold lines at any zoom level, and you'll need to use another PDF viewer for this purpose.

I am not aware of such a feature.

Preview.app is a rather limited PDF viewer which may display certain features incorrectly (transparencies, overprinting). IMHO, Preview should be avoided except for quickly looking at a document before opening it in a better PDF viewer.


Set Preview to open PDFs in Thumbnail View by default on El Capitan I can find nowhere to set Preview to default to Thumbnail View with all PDFs.  I use them every day. I have ticked Thumbnails in the View menu but it does nothing. Does anyone know how to set the default?

Have you tried setting Preview to always open with the sidebar? You can do this in Preview menu > Preferences > PDF tab and selecting the checkbox for "Always show sidebar".

Right click, select Get info, select open with, set default


Sharing an AppStore download across computers With the impending release of Lion, I'm wondering whether there is a way to download an app from the Mac AppStore only once, but use the downloaded installer or binary on more than one machine.

This is especially important for Lion, as I understand that will be a 4GB download. I have two Snow Leopard machines to upgrade, and considering the draconian data caps we have down here in New Zealand, I'm trying to avoid having to perform 8GB of downloads in order to upgrade them both.

Is this possible, or is it a limitation of the architecture that a shared app has to be downloaded via the AppStore on both machines?

Technically, the press says it will be possible and supported for businesses and schools, but you may need to pay for volume licenses. It's just not yet clear if this will be economical or feasible for individual consumers.

In general, you will have to download each purchase once for each mac. Updates will come up as small delta packages to reduce the load on you as well as Apple. Lion itself seems to be getting extra handling as a special case.

When you purchase a game or any other product from the Mac App Store, you can download it to several computers. Just log in using the same Apple I.D on the other computers and there is the option to re-download, so I suppose it will be the same for Lion 10.7 when it comes out.


Stop Safari 12.1 from auto-submitting forms Since the recent macOS 10.14.4 update which includes Safari 12.1 (14607.1.40.1.4), last started to automatically submit web forms with login & password fields once a value for password or login is selected from auto-fill options.
This seems to be related to the new 10.14.4 feature where Touch ID got an option to confirm auto-fill in Safari. However I have it switched off but Safari still does this crap.
I'm curious if anyone else have the same problem and how to solve it.

UPD Starting Safari 13.0 (14608.1.49) auto-submitting is disabled!

I have this issue too, and I've just spent a long time with an Apple Support chat agent.

This is a "feature" introduced in Safari 12.1.

What's new in the updates for macOS Mojave

  Streamlines website login when filling credentials with Password AutoFill.

There is currently no way to turn this off. This is the solution the agent proposed. Submit a feedback to Apple:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

  ...submit your feedback on the feature and your experience so far.

Maybe if we kick up enough of a fuss? It is a pain, and it also screws with captchas quite impressively...

I got the same issue with Safari 12.1, but I think it's not so bad
1. For sites which require captcha, the form is working like before, does not auto submit
2. For other sites, I got issue when can not click 'Remember me', but at the end I just click to that option first, and fill username & password.

So, I am totally fine with this feature.


How many amps should an iPhone 5s car charger output? When looking on Amazon for a car charger I noticed that different items have different amp values, 2.1 and 3.1 being the most frequent. What is the recommended value?

Does it even matter? Is there more to it than the fact that more amps mean faster charging?

More amps will not mean faster charging. The iPhone (and any electronic device) will only take as much current as it requires, and no more. The iPhone will take 1A to charge, and an iPad will take 2.1A.

There's no harm in using a charger that is capable of providing more current than a device requires, but there's no benefit either.

Providing less current than the device requires will lead to longer charging times, or no charging at all.

The I-pad chargers supply current at 12V and not 5V thus it will not charge the phone faster but will damage the charging port.*

*This is completely wrong. Current is measured in amps (I) not volts (V). Where wattage is W: W = IxV.

I do not know if higher wattages will damage your phone, but I do know when I accidentally hook-up my iPhone to my iPad charger, it heats up considerably.... I'd be very concert that if left for an extended period this would overheat and permanently damage my phone!


Mac mini 2012 (2.3 quad core) Vs late 2014 (2.8 dual core) I'm on my way to buy my new mac mini for my IOS development and I'm a bit unfamiliar with Apple products so I just want an advice from experts about that.

my budget is not that high so I have 2 options and need to know which the best i can buy for IOS development :

1) used Mac mini 2.3 quad core 16 GB of RAM with HDD 5400 1 TB (But it almost used for a year)
2) New Mac mini 2.8 dual core 8 GB of RAM with 1TB fusion drive.

Both are the same price and I'm a bit lost to decide. Any help would be much appreciated !!

Go with the older model.

The quad core i7 can run circles around the dual core i5 in multithreaded applications, which Xcode is (especially for code compilation tasks). You've seen that on the Geekbench scores.

The hard drive's speed is not really going to make much of an impact on your intended use.

The graphics chip is completely irrelevant.

The additional RAM will be a big boost especially running Yosemite.

You can check the models and see the score on Geekbench.


How to install cups-pdf? I'm trying to install CUPS-PDF for Mac by Homebrew as follow:

$ brew install cups-pdf
Error: No available formula with the name "cups-pdf"
It was migrated from caskroom/cask to homebrew/core.

but there is an error that it has been migrated to homebrew/core which I'm trying to install from.

In this case, what would be the proper method of installing it?

I've tested instructions provided at Bitbucket, but doesn't seem to work on High Sierra as per:

  This package is incompatible with this version of macOS and may fail to install.

See: OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) Package Installation Failed.

So instead, I've followed the instructions at farmerswife article and installed PDFwriter instead:

Download and install the Lisanet PDFwriter installer as per instructions
After installing the PDFWriter package, go back and Show Package Contents.
From the installer, uncompress Archive.pax.gz and copy PDFwriter.ppd file into /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources.
Now go to the Printers dialog and add the printer, choosing the Lisanet driver as explained in the documentation.

Source: PDF printing results in "empty" or "zero bytes size" PDF.

Here is an Alternative that Works Nov 2020 on Catalina
https://github.com/rodyager/RWTS-PDFwriter


Turning on the flashlight with Siri I asked Siri to turn on the flashlight but she answered "Sorry but I'm not able to do that". Is there any way to enable Siri to turn on the flashlight? I use an iPhone 6 Plus with iOS 8.1.

A quick dash round google gives me the impression that it could do it in iOS 7 beta 1, but the function disappeared after that & was never in a release iOS.

try using the word "LAUNCH" instead of turn-on.  She was able to turn on my flashlight app.


Save and Load Workspaces Is there an app or setting that lets me save (persist) and load workspaces (or "Spaces") on my Mac?

i.e. as a freelance software developer I want it to appear as if I have a completely fresh Mac dedicated to each of my clients' projects -- one Mac per project

Obviously the way to REALLY do this would be to have a whole virtual machine for each project, but that's definitely overkill.  A good compromise might be to make a User Account for each project, but still that is more trouble than it's worth.

The bottom line is that I want to keep everything I do in one project separate from everything I do in another project, but simply being able to Save and Load workspaces as has been common for years in the Unix world would be a 95% solution.

In practice, having a user account for each client actually works very well. The keychain contains items just for that client and you aren't distracted by your work when you are working on client's items. It's all about everything you need for that client.

Between webmail and web project management - you might even be able to keep some critical items out of the user account and be able to access it from multiple places.

I find that iOS is so good on managing the things I need, that I'm using "my" stuff on a computer so much less that one account per big project and a catch all consulting account to keep my personal account clear of work and be very nice for automated billing, crystal focus on the task at hand as well as clean separation of files and configurations where I can put things in a shared folder, but need to take a step rather than having everything all jumbled.

Fast User switching also helps to pop back to another account quickly when needed.

I developed an Mac app that records a workspace. You can drag&drop, add or copy/paste everything on it (files, contacts, bookmark, email, …), called Objects. By default, an Object is a reference to the original information.

My app records each event (adding, removing, resizing, moving, linking, unlinking, …) made to Objects, it can unwind and wind up these events in time, like a video tape recorder. Everything is persistent.

So you can Clean your workspace, select a previous workspace, and Recall all Objects from previous to the actual workspace using the "Clean & Recall" single action.

Maybe it's what you are looking for… My app is named hipSpace.


What is "~/Fotos Library.photoslibrary/resources/media/master" used for? Whenever I want to backup photos from a Photos Library I rely on copying all the contents of the folder ~/Fotos Library.photoslibrary/Masters.

However, I noticed that a lot of seemingly full-sized photos are stored in
~/Fotos Library.photoslibrary/resources/media/master with names as fullsizeoutput_XXX.jpeg.

What is this folder used for? Is it safe to get rid of those photos?

Photos image files are stored in the following location in Mac OS:

~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters/

The ~ tilde represents the users home directory, if you’re going to use the Go To Folder command to access that directory, do not skip the ~ prefix.

The Photos Library package file in Mac OS X

This focuses on local image files and not anything stored within iCloud. These are instead accessed through iCloud Photo Library or the Photos app.

How to Access Where Photos Files Are Stored in Mac OS

If you are going to manually navigate to the Photos file location using the Finder you would use the following steps;

Open the Finder in Mac OS and go to your home directory
Go to the “Pictures” folder
Locate the file named “Photos Library.photoslibrary”
Right-click (or Control+Click) on “Photos Library.photoslibrary” and choose “Show Package Contents”
Where Photos are stored on Mac

Open the folder named “Masters” to find the image files contained within Photos app
Photos file locations in Mac OS
The Masters folder contains directories of photos organized by date in year, month, and day subfolders. Within each folder are the image files from that specific date.

Note if you delete a picture from the masters directory it will no longer be accessible in Photos app. This is not recommended for obvious reasons. Copy a file from the directory if you wish to edit it.

This package folder is not intended to be user-facing which is why it is hidden, nonetheless you can access your files directly if you so desire.


Install Windows 7 on external drive and boot it from a Mac I want to install Windows 7 on an external hard drive, and boot from it when needed.

Is this possible on a Mac? I have heard from some sources that it is not possible to boot Windows from external drives, at least on the new Macs. I found this quite surprising.

Any idea if this is true?

It is possible, but it's not straight forward. This detailed step by step guide (which I did) contains all you need to know to install and run Windows 7 or 8 from an external drive (USB3 or thunderbolt): http://bleeptobleep.blogspot.fr/2013/02/mac-install-windows-7-or-8-on-external.html

To sum up, this guide will help you:

Get the Windows installation pack from a DVD or ISO file
Partition and format your external drive to make it bootable
Deploy Windows on your external drive
Boot on your external drive
Install Windows
Download and install the bootcamp drivers (without even using the bootcamp assistant)

The key to getting the whole thing to work is to run part of bootcamp - the one which creates a Windows partition - but (and here's the key) to make that partition on your internal hard drive VERY small (<1GB).

Then you can run the Windows install from an external USB. BEFORE running the install, you need to enter CMD within the install utility to "flag" the external hard drive as active and bootable.

I have created a detailed guide here:
http://kevtg-compuproductive.tumblr.com

It will work for any Mac, but especially with retina and air users who are having trouble getting other methods to work. The link above is formatted more nicely, but I have pasted the text below. It will work if you follow each step iteratively.

Guide: create external Windows 7 boot drive for Macbook
image
Perhaps you want or need to install Windows on your Retina Macbook Pro. This is not hard to do, if you don’t mind the Windows partition taking up space on your disk drive -or- if you are willing to deal with the performance degradation from using the virtual machines: Parallels or VMware.
Instead of installing Windows on a separate partition within an internal storage disk, you can opt to buy an external Thunderbolt solid-state drive on which to place the Windows OS. You could just as easily use an external hard drive (instead of a solid-state drive) if you prefer a lower cost/GB. It just won’t be as fast.
What these look like:
image
This frees up your internal drive for all your Macintosh computing needs, while also enabling a large external disk on which to place a robust Windows install.
This guide is fairly detailed and only requires that you can follow a series of specific steps. If you can tie your shoes and you can read, you can probably run Windows off an external Thunderbolt drive.
A SUMMARY OF THE STEPS (so you know what you’re getting into)
It should go without saying, but make sure you have backed up your entire system before you proceed.
1) Resize your internal drive partition to make room for windows boot files WITHOUT using Bootcamp. Bootcamp uses a 20GB minimum and we don’t want to lose that much space.
2) Install Windows on external Thunderbolt drive.
3) Install Bootcamp Drivers
THE GUIDE

1) Create a FAT formatted partition within your MBP internal disk. I call this “the sliver” because it is so-so tiny.
you can use Disk Utility or Terminal to resize your MBP internal drive
A. to use Disk Utility
Open it from Applications»Utilities
select the Drive from the top of the hierarchy
click the “Partition” tab
Beneath the “Partition Layout” pane, select your Macintosh HD (or whatever you have labeled you system disk).
Mentally now, subtract 1.0GB from the current size of your internal drive. For example, your drive may read 250.14. In the “size” box, type 249.0 You can actually shrink it by as little as 400MB, but let’s leave a little buffer. This is going to allow you to create a new FAT partition into which Windows will automatically place boot files
click “Apply”
now, click the new blank area below the main partition. Format it to MS-DOS (FAT)
Things should look something like this:
image
B. to use Terminal (faster, but less visual)
open terminal: Apps»Utilities
Type:
diskutil list

You need 2 pieces of information from the resulting table:
1) the size of your main partition and
2) your internal partition identifier (e.g. disk0s2) Double-check. But if you’re typing in terminal you already know that you should be precise anyway
now, execute the resize volume command:
diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 249G MS-DOS FAT 1.1G
In place of “disk0s2,” insert the identifier for your internal system disk partition.
now you have an internal FAT32 “sliver.” Confirm this with diskutil list

Now, there is a SECOND step NOT to be missed: tagging this tiny internal partition as “Active” for the Windows install. Luckily, your Windows install USB/DVD comes with the utility. This is detailed in step 4, below.

2) Create (if you haven’t already) your USB Windows install disk. Go ahead and use Bootcamp utility for this.
Just make sure, in the first window, you deselect the last option for “create Bootcamp partition and install Windows.” We already did this.
So, select “Create Windows 7 or later … ” and “download the latest Windows support…”
Deselect the last option.
this will take a while.
Sometimes, the utility has trouble getting the support software from Apple (fails). This is fine. By the time it reaches this point, it has already created the boot disk. BUT, this means you have to download the Bootcamp drivers manually. You can download them here. Then copy the Bootcamp_version-whatever folder onto the Windows install USB stick. It has been labeled WININSTALL by Bootcamp.
3) Boot to Windows install. Restart your computer, holding the Opt key at the perfect moment! It can be tricky to time it right. Select to boot from the USB “windows” drive. It is orange.
 image

4) Mark internal “sliver” as active. After the computer boots to the USB drive, click to select your language. BUT then we need to enter the “Repair utility” to set the small FAT sliver inside the computer to “active.” Don’t worry: you’re not actually performing any repairs. You’re just using the command-line utility that is built-in
After you hit “Repair,” go ahead and skip all the automatic options, so that you can use command-line.
In order now…
diskpart
list disk
select disk #  —in place of “#,” your internal disk listed
list partition
select partition #  —in place of “#,” the sliver FAT partition we created
active
assign letter=a (or whatever. Get crazy. Call it “Z”)
exit
5) Restart computer, hold option at the perfect moment. Select the USB Windows disk again (the orange one). Enter Windows install setup. You know, keep hitting “next, next next,” until…

6) Select a “Custom install,” when presented with the option, so you can select your external Thunderbolt disk to install. Do not install on your internal Mac drive. Do not install on the internal sliver partition.
Go ahead and format the whole drive using the Format button, after selecting your external Thunderbolt partition. Don’t format any other partitions
The format preserves existing partitions, BUT if you want to create others (perhaps to share with you Mac side) later, you can resize your primary NTFS partition within Windows after you install it.

7) Finish the Windows install. Each time it reboots, you will need to hold down the option key to choose to boot to the new Windows volume you have created during the install. Don’t boot to your USB stick anymore. The Thunderbolt Windows installation appears on the boot option screen as an internal disk, labeled “Windows.” If you miss the timing to initiate the boot menu, don’t worry. Your computer will boot into OSX. Just restart your computer and try, try again.
image

8) Install bootcamp drivers. After the installation completes and you log on for the first time, open your Bootcamp_version-whatever folder you stored in the WININSTALL USB drive you created in step 2.
Double-click the setup or autorun Application.
Hit next-next-next
If your install did not work, look over the instructions again. Though this process does not require any special skill, it is easy to mess up a step. Don’t panic. You already have a complete backup of all your data right??!
Boot into Mac OSX, open Terminal, and type:
diskutil list
If your table does not look like mine, ask yourself, “Why self?”

This will not work with a bootleg version of Windows. Click here for an explanation.


Apache works, 127.0.0.1 is accessible, but http://localhost/ is not In 10.7.2 update Apple roll out new bug, - hosts bug. This crashed broken hosts. I had tried install and configure dnsmasq, reconfig /etc/hosts/, and after this manipulations http://localhost/ doesn't load. If you need more info, please request it ))

My /etc/hosts file:

127.0.0.1   localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost
#

My /etc/resolv.conf file:

#
# Mac OS X Notice
#
# This file is not used by the host name and address resolution
# or the DNS query routing mechanisms used by most processes on
# this Mac OS X system.
#
# This file is automatically generated.
#
domain RT-G32
nameserver 8.8.8.8

dig localhost

ps sorry for a little broken english ^_^

Also check to see that there is a loopback interface configured for 127.0.0.1; it should be lo0:

#ifconfig
lo0: flags=8049 mtu 16384
    options=3
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128

If there is no interface attached to the IP address, then the packets have nowhere to be delivered.

dig localhost should return 127.0.0.1 . Check if the DNS on your machine is running.

dig localhost

; <<>> DiG 9.7.3-P3 <<>> localhost
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 20521
;; flags: qr; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;localhost.         IN  A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
localhost.      3600    IN  A   127.0.0.1


How do I remove the Google Chrome notifications bell icon from the Mac OS X menu bar? This bell icon showed up in my menu bar one day and there's no obvious way to disable it. How do I get rid of it?

edit: The option described below has been removed from Chrome. This should void the question as well as my answer.

Old answer:

In the Chrome Menu Bar under "Chrome -> Hide Notification Icon" you can get rid of the bell without having to go through flags (which doesn't work/exist any more!).
It's the Option one from the bottom (I found the information in a comment on osxdaily):

For Chrome (Version 35.0.1916.114), all you have to do is click on the bell to open the dialog box and then simply click on the bell with the line through it to toggle it on and off.  It disables the notifications, but doesn't remove the bell, so it solves part of the problem, that you said there was "no easy way to disable it".


Any way to make nicknames appear rather than full names? When creating contacts, you can enter nicknames. Is there a way to make these nicknames appear when your contacts call/text you as opposed to their full names?

Thanks.

Unfortunately, Apple hasn't given us that feature. As you probably already noticed the only place it displays is in the contact listing itself.

Enter their nickname in the company space. Then list them as a company. It will bold the name in your contacts list. From then on they will show up as their nickname.


hdiutil convert not working and not telling me why I've been trying to create a bootable Ubuntu flash drive following instructions from multiple sites. I need to convert the .iso file to an .img using hdiutil. For starters, the syntax of the command is very unclear. The ubuntu site and the -help option of hdiutil say hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img ~/path/to/ubuntu.iso but the man hdiutil says hdiutil convert ~/path/to/ubuntu.iso -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img. I have tried both ways and neither has worked. I don't get any sort of error message, and I know my paths are correct (when I try with an incorrect path it says so). The only thing printed in the terminal is

Usage:  hdiutil convert -format <format> -o <outfile> [options] <image>
    hdiutil convert -help

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Use ETCG drivemaker file, much easier.

Heres the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQIaDO9nR6Y&t=421s


Restore an iPhone from iCloud backup of newer iOS version I have an iCloud backup from an iPhone running iOS 8.3. Now, I'd like to restore another iPhone from this backup. The problem is that the other iPhone is running iOS 8.2 (this iPhone cannot be updated to 8.3 as I need it to run this very version).

I found some guides on the internet explaining how to do a downgrade from a beta version (I didn't find anything about downgrading from non-beta versions). But they are about downgrading from a major release to another major release (eg: iOS 8 to iOS 7).

My thought is that, unlike the iTunes backup, iCloud backup saves only information about the data on your iPhone (a list of all installed apps, a list of all downloaded music, movies, etc.) and when you restore from an iCloud backup, it will just re-download this media from iTunes and the App Store.

I didn't just try this yet as I don't know whether some data in iCloud may get corrupted by restoring to an older version.

Does anybody have any experience with this kind of thing?

You cannot downgrade unless one of the following is true:

Apple is still signing installations of the previous version of the OS to which you wish to downgrade, or
Your phone is jailbroken, you have saved your SHSH blob from the prior version, and you have a way to run a replay attack with that SHSH blob to trick the device into believing Apple is still signing that version.

You can determine whether a particular version of iOS is currently being signed for a given device on ipsw.me. Simply change 8.2 in the URL to the version you want to check, such as 8.0 or 8.3.

This list of updates, from the same website, shows when Apple starts and stops signing a given version.

In your case, 8.2 stopped being signed on 5/4/15. Therefore it is no longer possible to downgrade. Generally the window is about a month or so after a new version is released.

I had the same problem. You can put your iOS device into recovery mode, then restore it using iTunes.

Try this approach from Apple, if you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

Turn off your device and leave it off.
Plug in your device's USB cable to a computer with iTunes.
Hold down the Home button on your device as you connect the USB cable. Keep holding down the Home button until you see the Connect to iTunes screen.
When you see this screen, release the Home button. If you don't see this screen, try steps 1 through 3 again.


Require password to wake computer by specific condition I'd like to require password to wake my Macbook Air running Mavericks when it is not in my home.

So if it was not connected to my home wifi, then I'd like it to require password to wake from sleep or screen saver. And else, I'd like it to require password.

Can that be done?

You can use ControlPlane:

Add a context named home from the contexts tab.
Enable the nearby WiFi network evidence source from the evidence sources tab.
Go to the rules tab and add a nearby WiFi network rule that sets the context to home.
Add two screen saver password actions from the actions tab:

Another option is to add a line like this to crontab:

* * * * * system_profiler SPAirPortDataType|grep -q 'network name'&&x=false||x=true;osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell security preferences to set require password to wake to '$x


Just bought MacMini M1, not happy with BigSur can I install Catalina and if so how? Just bought a MacMini M1, not happy with BigSur is it possible to remove BigSur and install Catalina and if so how?

The minimum OS you can run on an M1 Mac mini is macOS 11 Big Sur.
It will not run Catalina.
Sorry.

That is a good question, not sure the answer is "No, you can not". Moreover, I am rather positive the answer is "yes, you can do that".
This is an old story. Catalina macmini users were unhappy with their computers SHIPPED with Catalina, they preferred Mojave.
https://scriptingosx.com/2020/01/downgrading-a-mac-that-shipped-with-catalina-to-mojave/
If you are familiar with Apple, you know they are always overcareful about security, and they boost it by, essentially, restricting your choices. Try to uninstall safari, for instance, or any in-build app. The same goes for the OS itself.
By the way, Apple has removed some of its requirements in Big Sur, but this faced a criticism by security enthusiasts like Patrick Wardle https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/1327726496203476992?lang=en


Keep message selection in Outlook 2011 When I open the Outlook window, the topmost message (the most recent) becomes selected. I've got Outlook set to automatically mark messages as read when selected, so it becomes read. This is a problem if I accidentally open Outlook and don't notice this has happened; I've missed emails before because of this.

How do I make Outlook 2011 keep the selected message the same between closing and reopening the message window?

Basically, I want Outlook's mail selection to behave like Mail.

   Because Mail is the best mail client ever. Too bad Outlook's calendar is so much better than iCal, or I'd use Mail and iCal.

In Outlook Preferences, select the Reading pane, then select option under Mark Mail as Read that says "Only when opened in separate window".

That will make sure you actually read the message.


Set Mac mini to be constantly on and logged in I've got a Mac mini that I would like to run headless; leaving plugged in to network and power only.

I want to leave the Mac mini on to:

Run Dropbox constantly, so that I have the local copy backed up to the Mac mini.
Run a cloud backup service so that my Dropbox data is backed up again.

The hurdles I see with doing so are:

If there is a power cut, I want to make sure that the machine reboots and logs back in so that tasks 1. & 2. above can run. This can be partially achieved by powering the Mac mini via a UPS, although if the power cut was long enough the UPS would also fail.
Knowing if the systems fail, so that I can fix them. I wouldn't want the systems to fail and me not know for 6 months.

Are there some specific settings I should be looking at in macOS to enable me to leave it running constantly carrying out tasks 1. & 2. above?

There are a few built-in settings in macOS and a 3rd party app that you should be looking at:

Under System Preferences → Energy Saver → Power Adapter, enable Restart after power failure.
Turn on automatic login by going to System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Options → Automatic Login and select your preferred user account.
You may also wish to install and run a helper app that can prevent your Mac mini from sleeping automatically. I'd recommend installing KeepingYouAwake.

Enabling number 1. above will ensure that your computer boots automatically after a power failure. This will ensure that the computer boots automatically after the power is restored.

Number 2. will automatically log into your preferred user account after a restart, thus requiring no user intervention to start things up.

Number 3. will ensure your computer never goes to sleep mode. You can configure the app to startup automatically upon system start.

Doing above three should ideally take care of your requirement. You have to make sure that no unauthorized personnel is able to access your computer physically.

I would recommend a little program called InsomniaX 2. It works flawlessly for me. That program should solve your problem.


Need to replace a hard drive in a macbook I have been asked to "replace a hard drive in a macbook".

I'm able to physically swap out the drive, but I have no idea how mac software works. I have some questions:

If I put in a new hard drive, will I have to reinstall an operating system?
When you buy a mac, do they give you a copy of the OS on disc like buying a windows PC?
If the procedure much different between different flavours of macbook?
Are there any special tools required extra to a small philips-head screwdriver?

Yes, the new hard drive is empty.  In fact, if it purports to have OS X on it, I would be suspicious.  I'm not sure Apple have ever supplied OS X on a separate drive.
"Old" laptop Macs (before OS X Lion) were sold with an optical disc. After a certain time most have shipped without an optical drive or a disc to put in it.  In that case the internal hard drive (or SSD) was supplied with a recovery partition.  You may be able to use Lion or later on a boot-able USB.
Yes, you might want to look at iFixit's guides or Apple's support articles.
Just Torx screws.

I was unable to install Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on a new blank drive in a mid 2010 MacBook Pro; it just hangs at the Apple logo. The computer boots just fine with a Mavericks HDD from another Mac Book. I contacted Apple and a senior tech told me that I would have to partition and format the drive using a running Mac before I could do the install. She clearly told me that "you cannot do a fresh install on a blank drive from the DVD" when I challenged the answer.


Use Homebrew LLVM over Xcode I'm trying to compile an algorithm package received by someone else. Basically all I need to do is run a bash script and everything will be compiled automatically. Now upon executing the script, I get a lot of errors, such as:

clang: error: unsupported option '-fopenmp'

My understanding is that the Apple LLVM does not support OpenMPI, so what I did is install the newest gcc version by installing LLVM (version 4.0) through Homebrew. I tried to add this to my bash profile by adding the following (found on the web – my apologies, this isn't my home terrain):

# export PATH=/usr/local/opt/llvm/bin:$PATH
# export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=$(llvm-config --includedir):$CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH
# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(llvm-config --libdir):$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

But this unfortunately didn't do the trick. I get the same errors, and I found out my computer still uses clang:

$ g++ --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 8.1.0 (clang-802.0.42)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin16.5.0
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin

Does anybody know what to do? I can't use another installer by specifying the version, since it's a long bash script, and I wouldn't know what to change where.

You change the script - or better use a build system makefile, cmake, waf etc to have the full path to the C++ compiler and not rely on the $PATH.

Alternatively see of the package has been ported to Homebrew and use that or if only to fink or MAcPorts see how they changed the script.

Lastly make the build as a Homebrew formula making use of Homebrew's own build tools

Didn't think carefully about it, but did you try to "brew link --force" LLVM?

Check the current compilers, e.g.

iMac:~ sir$ which gcc-6
/usr/local/bin/gcc-6
iMac:~ sir$ which gcc
/usr/bin/gcc

then, do e.g.

ln -s /usr/local/bin/gcc-6 /usr/bin/gcc

you might have to sudo.


Find which Chrome Tab is using Significant Energy Under the Energy Monitor in Yosemite, it shows Chrome having the highest energy impact. Is it possible to figure out which Chrome tab is the one that is consuming the most energy?

Right click the table headers (App Name, Energy Impact, etc.) and check Process ID. Now you can see the PIDs associated with that Energy Impact values.

Next, click the 'customize/options' button in Chrome (it's the triple horizontal stripes button next to the URL bar) and go to More Tools > Task Manager, which brings up Chrome's internal task manager. In there you'll find the different Chrome threads (including running extensions and open tabs) with their names and PIDs.

You can then cross reference the PIDs between Chrome's task manager and Yosemite's Activity Monitor.

This isn't an answer to your specific question... but I think I have a pretty good solution for you for tabs eating up memory :) After putting in real work and time with 4 different browsers over the course of about 6 days, noting my device's performance under normal working conditions, and being flexible with workflows in each browser, I came back to Chrome.
I continued searching high and low for an answer to my dilemma with no luck because my 2017 Macbook Pro was... about to be tossed out my fifth story apartment. I ultimately came up with my own little solution, implementing two wonderful plugins. They also added some benefits that I didn't even know I needed, which is something that'll help you automatically saving your windows' state of tabs, while also along you to save collections of tabs manually.
I don't know how I've survived this long...
"Chrome Tab Hoarder" and "Memory Efficiency" Achievements Unlocked!
Confession - I knew my memory issues were caused by the fact that I had 15 browser tabs open. I can have triple that open now, no problem.
Get the Toby Chrome extension to automatically save any and all browsing window states whether your computer stroked out or you quit Chrome on purpose. It's even better than what I was originally searching for because you can save (and edit at any point) Collections of tabs. This is by far my most used and favorite thing that I've discovered in 2020 (along with my web design software, Figma, and upgraded web development workflow).
The perfect companion extension for Toby is called The Great Suspender. It will cause you to yell at the sky screaming profanities a lot less because your computer will run SO much better. Suspended tabs use significantly less energy and memory. If you have tabs open and don't use them within 30 minutes, it'll stay there in your tabs, but be suspended and not use resources. When you click on the tab, it reloads. It won't suspend any tabs that have input fields with information in them or ones that actively play videos or sounds. You have options to not suspend any tabs from a particular domain, particular URLs (I don't suspend Gmail, ClickUp, and some others), customize the amount of time before suspending a tab, etc
I hope this helps some people! It may sound like a lot but give it an honest couple of days and see what you think, especially those of us who are tab hoarders .
I literally have 46 tabs open right now between two different windows - oops  My 3-year-old MacBook Pro has that plus Photoshop and 6 other open apps. My embarrassing number of tabs (let's not talk about it) wasn't even a possibility before, neither was saving them.


Open a note or display dialog with application I work with a colleague editing videos and I wish to trigger a dialog or a note document whenever he opens Final Cut, so I can leave messages for him to do the job. The machine has to stay always on, so I can't use any startup  method.

It's the same workstation same user account, we share the room in different shifts.

El Capitan 10.11.6 - FinalCut Pro 7 -- He enters after 18pm

Any advice on how to display a message when opening an application?

I don't have “Final Cut.app” so I tested this code with the TextEdit.app.  If you save this code in Script Editor as a stay open application, on first run, this app will display a dialog box for you to input the message that you want the person opening “Final Cut” to read. If the Final Cut closes or unexpectedly quits…. On reopen of Final Cut, the original dialog you previously set, will be displayed again.  When you quit the stay open app and then relaunch it again…. That dialog box will once again appear asking you to enter the message that you want the person opening “Final Cut” to read.

property theApp : "TextEdit" -- Change this
property theMessage : missing value
property appIsRunning : missing value

activate
set theMessage to text returned of (display dialog ¬
    "THE MESSAGE" default answer ¬
    "Message You Want To Display" buttons ¬
    "OK" default button ¬
    "OK" with title ¬
    "Message You Want To Display" with icon 2)

on idle
    repeat
        repeat until appIsRunning is true
            delay 5 -- avoids dialog and theApp (if relaunching) opening at same time
            set appIsRunning to application theApp is running
            if appIsRunning is true then
                activate
                -- Running A Display Dialog Within An Application Tell Block...
                -- Inherits The Apps Icon To Be Used In The Dialog Window
                tell application theApp to display dialog theMessage buttons {"OK"} default button "OK" with icon 1
            end if
        end repeat
        -- next line necessary to re-trigger the "repeat until" loop again
        set appIsRunning to application theApp is running
        return 5 -- in seconds
    end repeat
end idle

Here is a Apple script (in your Utility folder Script Editor) that will open Notes if the Final Cut is opened.

I don't have Final Cut so I used Skype to test. Just copy and paste following, then save.

repeat until application "Final Cut Pro" is running
    delay 1
end repeat

delay 5
if application "Final Cut Pro" is running then activate application "Notes"

The Delay 5 (seconds) is to have Notes as Top window after Final Cut starts. You can increase that number.
This script will run continuously until Final Cut is started, but we could go fancy and have it start at 18:00.

Prerequisite is you Quit the Final cut before you leave.

As always you can be very elaborate leaving a message and instructions in Note.

Also set Notes in Preference to sort by date created so to have the latest note on the top.


New (clean) install of iOS 9 while retaining Health/Activity and Apple Watch data I'm planning on doing a new clean install of iOS 9 on my iPhone because I really like to have a clean slate when changing iPhones and upgrading iOS. However, the fact that Health, Activity, and Apple Watch data isn't synced to the cloud has made this difficult this year.

Is it possible to do a clean install of iOS 9 on my iPhone and also retain Health, Activity, and Apple Watch data? Or is it only possible to upgrade / restore from backup to keep that data?

No, you cannot only restore Health data from a backup. Only encrypted iTunes backups and iCloud backups store Health.app data.

Unless you are Backup to a pc with encrypted option on iTunes Health data is not going anywhere but stays in your device hardware. So if you want to transfer or don't want to lose your health data first do a backup this way. Also please check under your settings.app>general>usage>manage local storage and find watch.app, click on it and check when is the last time your apple watch has been backed up


How to fix MacBook, not reconnecting to wireless network on wakeup? MacBook Air 11" - Mid 2011

My MacBook is not reconnecting to the wireless network on wakeup.

Is there a setting or something that I'm missing?

Every time MacBook Air (2010) waked-up from sleep it would ask to choose network to re-connect and then took about 20 sec to actually connect. same if I turn wifi off and then on again.

solution that worked for me was: system preferences -> network -> SET SERVICE ORDER.." (in sub-menu next to "+"/"-" (create/remove service) at the bottom of  services list on the left).

DRAG WIFI TO THE TOP in Service order list -> "OK" -> "APPLY"

After that I am back to no "choose network to connect" pup-up's and wifi connects in 3 seconds. Hope that helps.

I've been having a problem where WiFi will not reconnect on wake from sleep - in my case the Time Machine icon is spinning as if it were running a backup. If you cancel Time Machine's backup job, WiFi will instantly re-establish itself when Time Machine finally stops processing.

It seems to be some sort of bug related to putting the Mac to sleep while Time Machine is attempting to do... something... to the Time Capsule hard drive.


What will happen if I export a 720p video in Photos to 1080p? I'm considering exporting all the videos currently stored in my Apple Photos library. These are made up of a mix of different video "qualities," including 1080p and 720p.

When I choose the File > Export > Export [number] Videos command, a dialog box appears prompting me to specify a quality of the exported files, e.g., 720p, 1080p, etc.

If I choose 1080p, I presume that my 1080p videos will be preserved in a lossless way. That is what I want.

However, I don't understand what will happen to my 720p videos. Will the software export them in a lossless way as 720p, i.e., keep the files as-is, or will the software do something else? Will it try to re-encode them to "up" the 1080p format, potentially increasing the file size?

You've only got so many 'real' pixels to play with, so when you stretch that out to 1080p, you've got quite a few holes.

From there it all comes down to what approach the software you are using takes to create the missing pixels.  Typically the stretch it out to the edges, and then interpolate back to fill the holes, based on what the two pixels look like either side of the gap.

Some software does this better than others, and the best method to use can depend on the image content also.  Typically it makes things look softer, blocker if bad, and highlights poor quality issues such as moire etc.

Premiere Pro includes a simple algorithm as standard, and you can use plugging more targeted to the task if you want also.
There's no right or wrong.  A full HD TV will be doing this 720p to 1080p conversion ever time you watch anything less than full HD anyway for example.

Here is a simple graphics showing what happens


Sending All Traffic Over VPN Tunnel (IKEv2) in OS X 10.11.5 I recently setup VPN connections on my Macbook Pro running OS X 10.11.5 via the Apple Configurator. However, I am having trouble sending all traffic across the VPN Tunnel rather than through the regular Wi-Fi Connection.

Although the default route is created when the VPN is connected, no traffic is sent across the VPN (the VPN has been confirmed to be working in Windows and Linux).

Here is the output of:

  netstat -rn

    Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
default            10.0.0.1           UGSc           43        0     en1
default            link#8             UCSI            0        0  ipsec0
10/16              link#5             UCS             8        0     en1
10.0.0.1/32        link#5             UCS             1        0     en1
10.0.0.1           <EDGE ROUTER MAC>  UHLWIir        47      194     en1      1076
10.0.143.243/32    link#5             UCS             1        0     en1
10.0.143.243       <MBP MAC ADDRESS>  UHLWI           0        1     lo0
45.32.180.111      10.0.0.1           UGHS            0        0     en1
127                127.0.0.1          UCS             0        0     lo0
127.0.0.1          127.0.0.1          UH             18   781055     lo0
169.254            link#5             UCS             0        0     en1
172.11.22.1        172.11.22.1        UH              0        0  ipsec0
224.0.0            link#5             UmCS            1        0     en1
224.0.0            link#8             UmCSI           0        0  ipsec0
224.0.0.251        1:0:5e:0:0:fb      UHmLWI          0        0     en1
255.255.255.255/32 link#5             UCS             0        0     en1
255.255.255.255/32 link#8             UCSI            0        0  ipsec0

There is no option to enable/disable forwarding all traffic over the VPN like there is with PPTP.

How can I forward all traffic over the VPN when the VPN is active similar to how Windows and Linux already does this?

The more I dig into OS X and VPN Networking the more it seems like it would be easier to host a dual VPN of IPSec for the Windows and Linux clients and OpenVPN for OS X and iOS.

I met the same problem, but I found the checkbox exists in the "Apple Configurator2" VPN section.

By installing the profile with enabling that option, all my traffic seems to pass under VPN.


Is there anything like System Restore for Mac OS X? I've been a Mac user for a few years now. Thinking about if it would be a good idea to set up a Mac for my parents, I came to think of the awesome feature of System Restore in Windows where making a System Restore point once a day would make it really easy to roll back any mistakes or installed software that made the computer not work well.

Is there anything like it, perhaps a third party application or some cool github project, for Mac OS X?

So far as I know there isn't a nice automated way to provide the benefits of System Restore as it is implemented on Windows. For all its utility for Windows users, though, System Restore can't be used to backup/restore individual files & whatnot at the whim of the user - that requires a separate backup system.

Time Machine on OS X, on the other hand, can provide for the backup/restore of deleted documents, folders, etc, and can be used to restore an entire hard drive in the event of a crashed or munged drive. I've used this function a few times, twice on a very important server, and once on my own machine, with great success.

My Mom's new Lion iMac is setup with an inexpensive external 500 GB USB hard drive and Time Machine is running like clockwork. My Mom knows to check the Time Machine menu every day to make sure it is backing up. She's even started to recover files on her own now, without needing to call Tech Support (me).

Time Machine was also very helpful in migrating her creaky Leopard Mac mini to the new iMac a few months ago. Instead of hooking the old & new Macs together via Ethernet cable, I simply ran a Time Machine backup on the old machine, shut it down, connected the USB drive to the new iMac, and the Migration Assistant app took care of the rest. Her new iMac was up and running in a little more than an hour.

A non-Time Machine solution would be using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to back up the Mac to an external hard drive on a regular basis. This would allow for a mass restore of the drive's contents.

Another non-Time Machine solution would be to boot from the System Install DVD (pre-Lion)
or an bootable external HD (Lion & after) and create a restorable disk image. After converting the image to ASR format, Disk Utility can be used to restore the disk image.

Cmd-R to the rescue.

Just hold down Cmd-R during startup and OS X Recovery springs into action. It lets you choose from common utilities: You can run Disk Utility to check or repair your hard drive, erase your hard drive and reinstall a fresh copy of OS X, or restore your Mac from a Time Machine backup. You can even use Safari to get help from Apple Support online. And if OS X Recovery encounters problems, it will automatically connect to Apple over the Internet.


Macbook Pro 15" Late 2011 - Swap HDD with SSD - Fan always 2000 rpm I installed a HDD+SSD setup on this MacBook Pro 15" Late 2011.

At first I installed the SSD where the Superdrive was with an optical bay HDD caddy, but then I saw in System Informations -> SATA that while the speed link was 6 Gigabit, the negotiated speed was 3 Gigabit.

So I swapped the location of the HDD and SSD putting the HDD in the caddy. I was getting much better performances (booting Sierra in 18 seconds, instead of 30 seconds when it was in the Superdrive location).

The problem is, as soon as I make the smallest action (like opening Finder), the fans start going at 2000 RPM (which seems to be the minimum speed on this machine) and you can always hear them in background.

When I leave the MBP alone for 10 minutes, it becomes quiet again (you can't hear anything) but as soon as I start the simplest application, there go the fans at 2000 RPM.

That's strange because my other MacBook Pro (Mid 2010) is always quiet while I work, you start hearing the fans only under load.

What I already tried:

Resetting NVRAM and SMC
Using all popular fan control programs
Checking the temperatures (always very low)

Sierra is a clean installation. What am I missing?

One thing that I like in Macs is that you never hear the fans while you work. I'd like it to be like that.

You most likely have a malfunctioning sensor, and it's not necessarily restricted to the CPU.

There are sensors for ambient air, the heat sink/pipe, the palm rest, the CPU, the GPU, the hard drive, etc.  Any/all of these could be malfunctioning (or detecting) a malfunction to cause the SMC to spin up your fan.

To diagnose this problem:

Return your MacBook Pro to it's original configuration.  If the problem goes away, then you know it's due to an issue that was introduced due to the modification.
Run Apple Diagnostics.  Regardless if the problem goes away in the previous step, run Apple Hardware Test (AHT).  Hold the D key while booting from a powered off state with the AC adapter connected.    If there is an problem, this tool will likely tell you what the issue is (if there is one).

No issue - you have a good baseline to start working with
Issue - you will have a diagnostic code to start working with to solve the problem

Install the SSD in the HDD location.  Since this is your objective, this is the next logical step.  If you encounter issues here, it's related to the SSD installation.  You will want to run AHT here again to verify all is well.
Install the HDD in the optical bay caddy.  This being your final step, install it and check performance.  Run AHT again. Verify that you don't get any issues.

The key here is to do each step individually to see where something could have gone wrong.  It's also entirely plausible with the disconnection/reconnection of components something wasn't connected properly.  Double check your work. Double check that you didn't accidentally knock something loose.

A note on the inner workings of your MBP

The fans never stop, they are always spinning.  1000 RPM is typically the lowest speed.
Fans spin up because a sensor indicated there was a temp spike and the SMC responded by spinning up the fan
Controlling the fan is a bad idea.  Fans remove heat that's generated by the different components.  If the fan can't remove the heat (quickly enough) it will throttle your CPU to generate less heat.

When you control the fan, you treat the symptom.  If you really must have it quiet, treat the cause and lower your CPU speed, thereby reducing the heat, the fans will follow.  You will sacrifice performance but not endanger your CPU.

Although the way this question is phrased, three points would need or profit from clarification. But that is also part of what you are missing:

2000rpm is the minimal fan speed for this model. They should always spin at this level at least. How is the fan speed measured? Sensors can be defect and then do not report what is the case. Abnormal value readings might be indicative of a defective sensor.
2000–2500rpm should be almost inaudible to all but the youngest ears very close to the fans. How 'loud' do the fans get in terms of rpm? A Mac that has settled from re-installation (i.e. no more Spotlight indexing) should usually settle to quite 'cool' (~60°C internal CPU-die sensor) and quite quiet fans (2000 rpm, with this model: almost inaudible).
How do you measure the temperatures and how many sensors do you read out? What is 'normal' or "always very low" in degrees Celsius?

What you are missing is:

Graphics switching. Depending on several settings and your version of the operating system your discrete GPU might get switched on and produce quite a bit of heat even if you wouldn't suspect it doing very heavy 3D related actions. Such is for example the case when an external monitor is just plugged in or an otherwise innocent looking application just requests it explicitly.
A "clean install" is not necessarily a "clean install that has not seen Migration Assistant" (MA). MA might have brought over background tasks, or settings that cause too much load. Even if MA wasn't used you should also check Activity Monitor and Console for abnormal demands on the processing power available.
In addition to what you have tried already you should also re-check the hardware. That machine is getting relatively old now and will have accumulated quite a bit of dust and other debris inside the hardware. The likelihood of dirty fans and fins on the cooling system is increased with every day in operation even in the cleanest of real environments possible. Other mechanical blocks within the cooling system are possible and should be addressed as well.
Therefore: open the laptop up, just the bottom case, inspect the fans and fins. Even when installing an SSD means you opened it up before and should have seen gross abnormalities on the fans, the fins on the heat spreader are usually not diagnosable without shining a light through them after disassembling the fans to get a better view.
If they are dirty use a can of compressed air to clean both components while making sure the fans stay put and do not rotate from the blown air (just hold them down). While your at it: blow air through every nook and cranny, dust just has to be removed from every place in there.
Given the age of this system again it is also possible that other key parts in cooling the system have reached a point of trouble related to old age.

The thermal compound on the heatsink might still be the original. That means first it was probably applied a bit too generously in the factory and therefore not performing optimally anyway. Thermal grease also looses a bit of its cooling characteristics over time. That would mean a thinly spread re-application of high quality thermal grease should bring a bit of betterment.
The fans are mechanical – and getting old. It might simply be that they get louder while on  previously inaudibly shy levels of rotational speed. If they are too loud now for what they are supposed to be doing and clean: The fans are very easy to replace and not that expensive. Buy new ones.
Several other components on the logic board (like capacitors) are now known to be quite vulnerable to heat stress and might have gone bad, producing even more heat while they are dying.
The battery has to diagnosed separately and carefully.
These bullet points might be calling more for a specialist technician than those aspects before. –– Do not tinker with the hardware when you feel even in the slightest uncomfortable with what you are about to do.


Win 8 on Macbook Air I tried to install win 8 on mac using new bootcamp. the problem is that bootcamp formats the drive as Fat 32, and the installation does not start because it needs NTFS format. when format bootcamp drive as NTFS manually and install the win 8, win 8 does not start up. i get the beginning black screen with no change. Can anybody help me here?

Thanks

You may need to go through a firmware update. Apple noted the issue here.

I prefer to use an app like VMWare Fusion, which enables me to have both OSX and Windows 8 open at the same time. I can even move files from one to the other.
Parallels is a "parallel" app to VMWare Fusion. I prefer the latter.

Stan Kossen


How exactly does the new Mountain Lion filesystem work? I heard that the new filesystem only allows one level of folders. How does it work exactly ? Will my existing beautifully organized folder-tree be collapsed into one folder when I upgrade? As a software developper, I really need to work with multiple level folder hierarchy, and I can't imagine living without this.

I'm waiting to upgrade until I get better information about this. The article I read doesn't make me comfortable with such a flattening of the OS X filesystem if indeed that has happened. Can someone shed more light on this please?

Don't worry, the filesystem is really the same as in Lion. What you may have misunderstood is how the new iCloud integration works. Every app that supports it (it may even be built-in if you use the system-standard open/save components, I'm unsure) will display an iCloud tab in the Open/Save dialogs, but this is in addition to the standard Finder hierarchy that's been around forever.

This new iCloud storage doesn't allow nested folders, so you only get one level of hierarchy. The idea is to keep things simple à la iOS (it looks like and is conceptually the same as organizing apps on iOS).

For more detail and description, check out the iCloud and You section of John Siracusa's Mountain Lion review at Ars Technica.

As far as I know, what you're saying applies only to iCloud... MacOS has been using HFS+ (HIERARCHICAL File System +) since 1998, and, as the name implies, file system hierarchy is a corner stone in it.


suddenly key 'p' is doing strange things I have macbook pro early 2011 and i have upgraded the os to mountain lion.
Today key 'p' is doing strange things.
p0p0p0
--/p0p0
-/-/p0
\p0

above things came when i am pressing 'p' key, onscreen it shows volume notification and reduces the volume.
so now its working like F11 key and printing garbage things.

How can i trouble shoot this p key problem?
Note: in this post i have used p using copy paste.

You have spilt some (lots) water on your keyboard. Or less likely, some connectors got broken and are touching each other. Take it to your Apple Store, they will (usually) fix it for free. Or if you’re adventurous, open the thing up and let it dry for a couple of days in the shade.


How can I prevent my bluetooth headset from preempting the internal mic on connection? How can I prevent my bluetooth headset from preempting the internal mic on connection?

Every time I connect my headset I am forced to go into sound preferences to set the mic back to the internal microphone.

macOS Sierra 10.12.3

You must go to System Preferences > Bluetooth, select the headset device and click the X on the right side to remove it. When you need to use the headset again, it will need re-pairing. (Screenshot below shows my Apple Trackpad, for which new batteries are imminently needed!)