Can I stream any video played with VLC player to Apple TV? Can I stream any video played with VLC player to Apple TV ?

Any additional plug-in for it...?

It's not using VLC (although it uses some of its components and should be able to open anything VLC can open), but it looks like there's a way to do this. It requires on-the-fly transcoding for formats the AppleTV doesn't support (essentially anything not .mp4 or .m4v), which means it may take a fair bit of CPU power on your Mac, especially for HD stuff. It also means that aside from files the AppleTV natively supports, you're not getting bit-perfect renditions of the files, it's a lossy translation, but if you have a decently fast Mac, it should be pretty good.

The main tool you'll want is AirFlick. It's a pretty basic program that sends a URL to the AppleTV that tells it to open a stream from your computer. It also handles transcoding the non-native files. It's not very well documented; it looks like the latest versions use a built-in copy of ffmpeg for transcoding, but some of the resources around the web suggest that it may need VLC installed as well.

Usage is pretty straight forward.

Open up AirFlick
Select your AppleTV from the drop-down in the upper-left
Drag the file you want to play onto the droplet, and hit play.

It should take around 30 seconds to buffer the transcoding, then start playing. It's definitely beta software, so YMMV.

From what I can tell, the transcoding support is pretty simplistic. If you want to configure the transcoding process, you need to use custom VLC or ffmpeg command-line options and pass the output to AirFlick.

This guide from TUAW should give you a starting point for how to do that, but you'll want to consult other VLC or ffmpeg resources for specific configurations - it's beyond my expertise. The basic idea seems to be:

Use VLC or ffmpeg to transcode the source (in the example, that's dvdread:///dev/rdisk5@1:3-, replace that with the path to your file of choice) on-the-fly to an AppleTV compatible format
Pipe that output to mediastreamsegmenter which breaks the video into a streaming playlist the AppleTV can read
Host the streaming playlist on a webserver on your Mac
Use AirFlick to pass the URL of the playlist to your AppleTV

For streaming movies from mac to apple tv use Beamer app, its flawless..

Review 1

Review 2

Review 3

Which movie file formats are supported?

We support all common formats and resolutions. You don’t need to convert your videos. AVI, MOV, MKV, MP4, WMV and FLV files will play just fine.

You can download the trial to test any obscure file format you may have. We aim to offer smooth playback for all movie files on all supported Macs. If you have a movie file that doesn’t play well, we’d love to hear about it.

Why use Beamer and not Screen Mirroring?

Screen Mirroring over AirPlay works great in general, but the video quality is a lot less reliable than when you are streaming a movie using Beamer (or iTunes for that matter). The video stutters every now and then. You may find this acceptable when watching a YouTube video, but it is very distracting when you are immersed in your favorite film or TV-series.

Beamer offers smooth playback and consistent quality, because it builds a buffer of video to prevent stuttering.

Beamer also enables playback control (pause, fast-forward, etc.) using the Apple TV remote and you can still use your Mac for other tasks while the movie is playing.

Can Beamer play DVDs and DVD-rips?

Beamer currently has no support for DVDs and DVD-rips. However, you can play the individual VOB files within the VIDEO_TS folder.

Are subtitles supported?

We’ve added support for both embedded subtitles and subtitle files in version 1.5. Supported formats are: SSA/ASS, SubRip (SRT), SubViewer and MicroDVD. Your Apple TV software needs to be updated to version 5.1 or later for subtitles to work.

Is surround sound supported?

Yes. Support for surround sound output was added in version 1.6.

I don’t hear any sound (except a buzz or roar)?

If you play a file with a surround sound audio track, Beamer will offer the Apple TV a choice of playing either surround or stereo sound. Which choice the Apple TV makes is based on the setting ‘Dolby Digital’ (In the Settings app on Apple TV, go to ‘Audio & Video’)

If you don’t hear any sound or only a buzz, the Apple TV has picked the surround sound track. Make sure that your receiver is set to receive a Dolby Digital (AC-3) signal.

Alternatively, if you don’t have a surround sound setup, set the ‘Dolby Digital’ option to ‘Off’.

The subtitles menu says ‘Automatic’ but I don’t see any subtitles?

The ‘Automatic’ settings means that Beamer will let the Apple TV determine if and in what language it needs subtitles. To make it work, take the following steps:

Select your default subtitle language from the Apple TV settings screen. Go to “Audio & Video” and select “Subtitle Language”.

Make sure your subtitle tracks or files have a language code. For subtitle tracks this is usually already part of the metadata of the file, for external files you must put the language code after the name, before the file extension, e.g., movie-name.de.srt, for a German SRT file.

In the case of external files, make sure they have the same base name as the movie file. For example, for a movie called ‘movie-name.mkv’ its English subtitles file must be called ‘movie-name.en.srt’.

If you manually load an SRT file (e.g., by dragging it onto Beamer’s window), it will show the subtitles and ignore any language settings.

Can Beamer send video to more than one Apple TV?

You can choose which Apple TV you want to use for video playback. It’s currently not possible to send video to more than one Apple TV simultaneously.

Does Beamer work with AirPlay receivers other than Apple TV?

It may work, but we don’t officially support it.

Can I use my license for multiple Macs?

Yes, a license for Beamer is a personal license. You can use it on as many Macs as you (personally) own.

Will I have to pay for upgrades?

The license is valid for all upgrades of version 1.x.

Can I queue another movie file so it starts playing automatically after the current one ends?

Beamer does not currently provide such a functionality, but the ability to create and run a playlist is on our roadmap.

Beamer suddenly reports it cannot find my Apple TV. What’s wrong?

When this happens, the Apple TV has trouble announcing itself on your local network. With some Wi-Fi routers his happens more often than with others. Try to restart your router, your Apple TV (unplug it and plug it back in) and your Mac’s Wi-Fi. For more information, please refer to this Apple Support article.

Apple TV just shows a spinning wheel when I start a movie. What’s wrong?

Apple TV fails to connect to your Mac to get the video stream. For most people, this is an issue with their firewall. You can check whether the OS X firewall is enabled: open System Preferences, select “Security & Privacy”, then “Firewall”.

A movie plays, but stops to load sometimes. How can this be fixed?

Try to restart your router and your Mac’s Wi-Fi. If that doesn’t help, the movie file may be too large to process fast enough on your Mac. We will keep improving compatibility in future updates.

Can I play a movie with Beamer but let the sound come out of my Mac?

Yes, this is possible by virtue of a feature of the Apple TV and AirFoil Speakers by Rogue Amoeba.

Install and run AirFoil Speakers on your Mac

Select your Mac as AirPlay speaker via Settings > AirPlay on your AppleTV

You can also change the AirPlay speaker while playing a movie. Press the select button on your AppleTV remote until you see the menu. Here, you can also change the volume.

Can I increase the size of the subtitle text?

Yes, this is supported through a feature of the Apple TV. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Style on the Apple TV. You can configure a wide range of styles and sizes.

Why is Beamer not in the Mac App Store?

It was turned down for using undocumented Apple technology. We use an undocumented way to communicate with the Apple TV over AirPlay. The same technology is used by Apple’s own apps, so it works well in practice.

Will there be a Windows version of Beamer?

We have no plans to make a Windows version, but we won’t rule it out. There’s still a lot we want to improve in the Mac app.

Email us at support@beamer-app.com if you have any questions.


How can I Open Multiple Customized Terminal Shells? How can I customized Terminal so that when I open the application it opens several shell tabs?
If possible I would like to also have it run a different environment script for each tab.

Example: Run this command source bin/activate which is a Python virtualenv setup command.

Add this to your ~/.bash_profile if you use bash or ~/.zshrc if you use zsh, changing the content of the COMMANDS array:

function openterms() {
    COMMANDS=("source bin/activate" "add another here" "continue likewise")
    for command in $COMMANDS
        do osascript -e \
        "tell application \"Terminal\" to do script with command \"$command\""
    done
}

Now calling openterms in a shell will open all the other shells you wanted.

Does this post describe what you want to do?


Is There A Free Photoshop Alternative for Mac OS X? I've been doing quite a bit of searching, but I'm only turning up commercially licensed packages.  I don't need something as fully-featured as Photoshop, but something in that genre is sufficient.  These features are of most importance to me:

Basic photo editing
Some filters
Layering
Text tool

I want to be able to make simple posters/flyers by combining multiple images and text.

GIMP is widely recognised as a quality free alternative to Photoshop in many regards.

...but it's not considered to be particularly successful in it's approach to embracing Mac OS X application design ;)

If you want something that isn't necessarily free but is at least inexpensive, then there are a number of other programs including Acorn and Pixelmator available in the Mac App Store.  You could always try the cut down Photoshop Elements.

For a good roundup, see this wonderful blog post from the Ask Different Community Blog for more info:

GIMP vs Photoshop vs Pixelmator – Graphics Editor Shootout

Photoshop 6 Beta is free on http://labs.adobe.com/


Fullscreen Browser App without navbar I'm looking for a fullscreen browser app for iPad with no navbar, so the user can only navigate on the same page but not go anywhere else. Does anybody know an app for this? Or is it possible to do this in standard Safari?

I do not know how to disable the navigation bar on Safari for iOS. However, applications exist for iOS that may satisfy your requirement. You may want to search the internet for terms such as "kiosk browser ipad" or a similar query.

One of these applications is called Amtel Secure Browser Kiosk. I have never personally used it, but it is free.

  Amtel provides a secure restricted browser & kiosk application for iOS
  users. Browser policies can be configured such that only whitelisted
  links are made available to the end users. The application is designed
  to help IT departments at Healthcare organizations, Financial
  institutions, Education sector, Libraries, Hi-tech, Fleet management
  etc manage browser security on the iOS devices. The Administrator can
  customize the settings to stop blacklisted sites on the devices or
  allow only favorite sites on the browser. The kiosk mode is designed
  to give the users the benefits of mobile device technology with fewer
  distractions & security risks. The configuration of browser settings
  is done at Amtel Mobile Device Management console - MDM.

Since i dont know much about technical terms so i will just post you the link check they have shown how to enable full screen in safari itself

http://blog.initlabs.com/post/81716286465/how-to-display-websites-in-fullscreen-mode-in-ios7

. or you can use apps like SFWB OR
FREE Full Screen Private Browsing for iPhone & iPad by SAVY SODA.


Safari no longer defaults to typing in address bar. Why? I recently deleted cookies and deleted my AdBlocker for Safari. Since then, things have been acting weird, e.g. websites open slowly, my homepage was set to Yahoo, etc.

Previously, when I would open a new tab, the cursor would be in the address bar. Any typing I would do would start there. Now, I must manually click the address bar, or use the Command + L shortcut to go there.

That's a pain. How could I reset this? I see nothing in Safari's Preferences.

Your system could have been infected with adware and/or malware. See this Apple Support page on how to remove adware.

For malware, I have relied on Sophos' free Antivirus for Mac for several years. I use it on my home machines, and my school uses it enterprise-wide on all Mac and Windows desktops, laptops and servers.

Under Safari -> Preferences -> Search ->

Uncheck “Include Safari Suggestions”


Trackpad on early 2015 13" MacBook Air keeps losing its "click" The trackpad on my MacBook Air keeps losing its physical "click". It still works fine, and pressing the trackpad down still works, it just doesn't move.

I've tried adjusting the relevant screw two or three times and on each occasion this has worked, but after a short time the trackpad reverts to not clicking.

Short of changing out the entire trackpad, what can I try in order to fix this?

The trackpad doesn’t actually move or have a physical click on any 2015 MacBook Air — it uses a haptic device to tap back at you when you touch it to simulate a click. So I guess that your Taptic Engine has failed.


How can I secure a Retina MacBook Pro to a desk? (similar to how the older MacBook Pro could use a Kensington Lock) I work for a company renting office space from a downtown skyscraper. In order to deter casual theft from building employees and cleaning staff my company prefers we secure our laptops to our desks using Kensington locks. With the last MacBook Pro (the 13" one with the slot-loading optical drive) this was no problem, as it had the slot for the lock.

And then I asked for (and got) a recent MacBook Pro with Retina. One of the things none of us really thought about was its lack of a slot for the lock.

So I've investigated the options and none of them are really confidence inspiring.

The prevailing logic is to buy this thing from MacLocks. However, it has very mixed reviews, it requires grafting something onto your rMBP (which, for what its worth, I don't care about for cosmetic reasons, but rather the idea of having to screw something onto the bottom of the thing is a little unnerving), it has very mixed reviews, the website itself looks shady (the JavaScript bot pretending to be a human asking me if I need help is bothersome), and it's sort of expensive ($70) considering all of the above.

Most of the other options I see are no longer on the market (either for lack of sales or effectiveness, I assume) or are precluded on the idea of things like alarms going off should they be removed (which is going to be pointless if the casual theft were to occur after hours). One solution was a "locking case" which reportedly had overheating issues.

As it stands now I'm just tossing the thing in a drawer at the end of the night and locking the drawer which is a pain and doesn't allow me to let tasks like app submission go on so I can leave for the day, but it's potentially the only real option other than MacLocks.

So what other options are there for locking a rMBP to a desk? Has anyone here tried the MacLocks solution? Or is the rMBP mostly a "take home at the end of the day or don't worry about it" device for most people? I'm not taking mine home because I have my own rMBP in my backpack and the nature of what I'm currently doing precludes me from working from home anyway.

For what it's worth I did see this question but it's for a MBA, it's four years old, and the accepted solution (loud noise when the adapter is removed) isn't going to work for me as I mentioned above)

I know SE is not a place for product recommendations, but this Henge Dock sounds like something that might be useful to you.

The dock hugs the MacBook Pro from both sides (inserting a plug into all the available ports), and has a Kensington lock port on the back.

I do not own this product but I have been considering it.

Mitigation and deterrence instead of prevention

Locks make it harder would-be thief to take your stuff, but it is not the only way to reduce theft-related risks.

Publicly visible cameras, among other things, would signal to a would-be thief that they are likely to be caught and thus deter theft - especially if the building is not completely public, and the cleaning staff and employees of other tenants wouldn't expect to be anonymous there.

And assuming that most data is constantly securely backed up online (which may not be the case for you, but is so for many configurations) it may well be that simple insurance is cheaper than fancy $70-$399 locks, and it also would protect you from other risks than theft.


-bash: export: `Drive/Courses/Programming/nand2tetris/tools': not a valid identifier Every time I log in to the terminal, I get this error.

-bash: export: `Drive/Courses/Programming/nand2tetris/tools': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `Drive/Courses/Programming/nand2tetris/tools': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `Drive/Courses/Programming/nand2tetris/tools/:~/Users/nikhilagrawal/Google Drive/Courses/Programming/nand2tetris/tools/': not a valid identifier
-bash: export: `Drive/Courses/Programming/nand2tetris/tools/': not a valid identifier

It sounds like either your $PATH has been changed.

Here is a link to reset your $PATH: https://superuser.com/questions/121870/how-do-i-reset-the-path-variable-on-mac-os-x


Headphones, MacBook Pro, Parallels and no sound on the headphones I have Parallels installed on my MacBook Pro.  I have a headset plugged in.  There is no option to choose to play sound on the headset.  My options are Internal Speakers and Internal Sound or Parallels Access Sound for both input and output.  What do I need to change in order for the headphones to be usable?

Go to System Preferences > Sound Click on headphones or internal speakers


External DVD reader suddenly not working anymore I have a Iomega SuperSlim USB 2.0 8x DVD Writer External Optical Drive that I used without any issue on my Macbook Air.

Now all of a sudden it doesn't work anymore. The DVD spins, a "Audio CD" item pops up on the Finder sidebar and vanishes a few seconds after. Over and over again.

iTunes manages to get the track info after some attempts, so the DVD is readable.

I've tried to plug the same disc and DVD reader on a Windows machine, it worked seamlessly. So I guess this has something to do with the mac, maybe a recent software update?

Is there anything to do to troubleshoot such issues? It's the first time I have a hardware/driver issue (or similar) on my mac.

HW: MacBook Air 13-inch, early 2014 w/ 8GB or RAM and a Core i7
SW: OS X Yosemite 10.10.3

That it works fine on a Windows PC but not your Mac is puzzling.

Think back to when you know it worked properly. What software have you updated since then? That could be the cause. For example if you went from OSX 10.10.3 to 10.10.4 and that is the only change there may have been a problem with the update.

In that case you may want to try re-applying the latest Combo Updater for your current OS version. If it was an app of some sort you may have to contact the manufacturer to see if they have had similar issues from other customers.

Have you tried restarting into the recovery partition and then re-installing OS X?

  To restart in recovery mode, shut down or restart your computer, and when it restarts hold down Command R. From there, select Re-install OS X, select your ssd, and  let it re-install. It will restart at least once during the process, and when it's done I think the dvd drive will stay mounted.

If that doesn't work, try opening a terminal window (while the dvd drive is plugged in) and typing diskutil list. It should say something list your ssd as disk0, but it should also list the cd as disk1s1 or disk2s1. If it does, that tells you that your computer is able to keep the dvd drive mounted.

And if that doesn't work, your dvd drive may have a problem or is nearing the end of it's life span. Not staying mounted is one of the things that happens when they have problems or are dying


Change the behaviour of Enter key in iMessage I keep sending iMessages from my mac before I have finished typing them by accidentally hitting the return key.  Is there a way to change the behaviour to send on Cmd-Enter instead?

I think its not possible to change behavior of Cmd-Enter Key you can use ALT + Enter/Return keys to create a New Line/paragraph in a text chat.

Shift+Enter creates a new line for Spanish layouts.


What's the font in Mac OS X's GUI? What is the font that's used in Mac OS X's graphical user interface (GUI), in the menus, dialog boxes, etc.? Is it different from what was used in the classic Mac OS (i.e. OS 9 or older)? If so, what are the fonts back then? I like the font but never knew what it was. Thanks.

The font you see in most places on Mac OS X is Lucida Grande, it is the system font in OS X 10.1 Puma to 10.9 Mavericks. Mac OS 1-7 used Chicago, then Mac OS 8 and 9 used Charcoal.

The most recent additions are Helvetica Neue (OS X 10.10 Yosemite) and San Francisco (OS X 10.11 El Capitan through Mojave)

Sorry but In my computer I would say that it is Apple Symbols. At least that is what the microsoft office says and it looks quite similar...


Mojave - disabling trackpad from terminal I tried to disable trackpad on my MacBook Pro 2015 my operating system is Mac OS X Mojave there is not have Accessability menu in System properties. So, how to disable it from Terminal?

there is not have Accessability menu in System properties.

Look closer. Accessibility should be at the end of the fourth row of icons in System Preferences. If you don't have any third-party preference panes installed, this will be the bottom row.

The icon looks like this:

I found this solution Disabling the trackpad from the command line, which is suggests the following command line:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBMultitouch.kext/

which successfully disables the trackpad, but also the keyboard and a few minutes later the computer crashes and restarts.

Unfortunately the "Ignore trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present" no longer works on Mojave. Because of well document bug where mouse starts jumping in uncontrollable fashion with the only solution being to disable the trackpad and use mouse, I've had that option checked for a while. But after an upgrade to Mojave, even when the option is checked the trackpad still reacts and the mouse is jumpy, which makes the computer mostly unusable (most apps don't have a very fluid shortcut keys support).

Bottom line: any suggestion to disable the trackpad, permanently and forever, on Mojave, not only when a mouse is detected would be amazing! :)


aptX Bluetooth Headphones (B&O H8) Drop Sound - Yosemite The B&O H8s work great some of the time wirelessly (iPhone) and wired, but not with MacBook Pro 15 early 2011 (Airport/Bluetooth card upgraded to BT4.0). However, sometimes, they will start to skip and drop in and out (as if I were plugging and unplugging an audio cable). The speed of the audio will increase after it skips to "catch up".  None of the online fixes seem to help this out. Can't get the RSSI above -60 dBm.  Appreciate any help at all.  Thanks.

They are working perfect with OS X Yosemite 10.10.2. After upgrading to  10.10.3 (beta or final) the problem that you described appear. The headphones are working perfect first time after adding to bluetooth list, but is not a solution to delete and add again.
Bang & Olufsen post this to their website:

Can I connect my BeoPlay H8 headphones with my MAC/PC using Bluetooth?
In most cases BeoPlay H8 is able to connect to a PC/MAC with Bluetooth 4.0 and a A2DP Bluetooth profile, provided that the hardware and drivers of the computer are also compatible. However, the computer protocols in the market are inconsistent and we cannot guarantee that BeoPlay H8 is able to connect using Bluetooth to all PC/MACs.

Try to edit advanced settings to macbook bluetooth with "bluetooth explorer" HardwareIOTools_Xcode. I just manage to improve my bluetooth connection.


Why is emptying the trash so much slower than rm? If there are a lot of files in the trash, sometimes the Finder will display a progress bar saying (for example) "Preparing to delete 62,736 files", then another progress bar for the actual deletion. By comparison, deleting those same files from the command line is nearly instantaneous.

What is the Finder doing that takes so long? Is it detrimental to my system to skip that by deleting files via rm?

This is a case of "destructive" vs "non-destructive" editing of files.
Like in old days of cutting and gluing together audio tape or film, editing then was destructive like RM command is. You type in the command, hit ENTER and RM is immediately executed.

On the other hand, moving files to the TRASH folder is just that, and the system responds, "wait while I figure out how much stuff I need to move". You pay in time for the ability to UNDO a possible accidental erase. In the old days we were usually not so lucky in computers or with film or tape. :-)


My fiance's iPhone 4 is still running on iOS 5, now that 6.1.3 has been released can I upgrade her to 6.1.2 so she can use evasion? I have an iPhone 4S, CDMA version, iOS 6.1 jailbroken. Therefore no real need to upgrade at the moment. However my fiance's iPhone 4, I have heard, could benefit from an upgrade to iOS 6.1.2 from the iOS 5 she is currently running (jailbroken with absynthe). I was going to do this today- then I found out iOS 6.1.3 was been released, which is not able to be jailbroken. Is she stuck or can she upgrade to 6.1.2 somehow still and use evasions jailbreak?

you can download ipsw file for 6.1.2.  apparantly there is a way to do this for iphone4 but newer hardware will not allow it.


Sourcing and opening multiple files of same name, in specified folder, in Terminal? Is there a way? Say I open terminal and change directory to folder 'folder', I type

cd folder.

Say there're multiple folders within this folder, i.e. data 1, data 2, data 3, etc., and within each of those is an image named 'image_a'. Is there a way to source all of the 'image_a' files, and open them via command line? Or write a script/run a function that does?

This part may be irrelevant, but they're NIfTI gzip (.nii.gz) files that I'll open via FSLview. The syntax to open a single image is

fslview </file>

It depends on whether fslview accepts several filenames at once and does the right thing based on that (the documentation/man page should have more details on this). If yes, you can run

cd folder
fslview data*/image_a

to have it open all files at once. If no, you can use

cd folder
for f in data*; do fslview "$f"/image_a; done

or

cd folder
for f in data*/image_a; do fslview "$f"; done

instead (the second option works better if there are data X directories which don't contain image_a).

PS: For a test run, replace fslview with echo fslview to see which command(s) would be executed.

Try each of these

fslview image_a*

open image_a*


My custom shortcut for Preview app doesn't work As you can see, I defined shortcut, restart system, but it is still not visible. Why?

Just to give this an answer for future Googlers…

This appears to have been a bug, fixed in El Capitan 10.11.1 & Preview 8.1 (877)

Or, as mentioned in comments, the initial tests were mistaking three full-stops for an ellipsis
… instead of …

Same problem here... sortcuts work everywhere except for Preview.  Also, the shortcut for the selection of content in the side bar ('contents only', 'Bookmarks','Contact Sheet') works even with the shift key pressed (which is not the shortcut displayed).

Assigning the shortcut to All Applications works also in Preview.


How can I access preview documents saved to iCloud from 10.8 on an iPad? As of OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) one can move Preview documents to iCloud, how do I access these documents from my iPad?

You unfortunately can't, there is no related application for iOS right now. Whether this is an oversight in Preview (which shouldn't be able to save into iCloud in the first place) or a hint for things to come with iOS 6 is unclear right now.

Me Too, saved photos edited in preview and it saved them to iCloud allegedly and now i can't know where they are. Somewhere in the cloud I am guessing.


Single desktop image for all desktops I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion. Afterward when I would set a Desktop picture (either through System Preferences or iPhoto) it was applied to all desktops.

Yesterday I control clicked the desktop and set a picture and it was only applied to that desktop. Now, wether I use System Preferences or iPhoto it only affects the current desktop. I then have to move SP or iP to a new desktop and set that one, then the next, etc.

Does anybody know how to fool Lion back to having single desktop picture for all desktops?

Edit:
I have active windows on each desktop that I would like to stay there, so closing all of my apps and regenerating desktops is not helpful. Similarly, gathering all windows to a single desktop and regenerating desktops is again not helpful.

The point is to reduce tedium, so anything that involves more steps is clearly not what I'm after.

To be explicit, for some reason previously Lion did it the way I want. Some setting in some file somewhere changed this behavior. This is the setting I'm looking for.

The answer is simple (and very Apple-like!).

Simply close all extra desktops until you only have one desktop. (To do this, go to Mission Control, hold down alt and click the crosses which appear on unwanted desktops).

Then change the desktop background for the one remaining desktop.

Now any new desktops you create will inherit the background of that first desktop.

I would recommend an app i use called stay. it's not free but it might be of great use in positioning windows just the way you want them. You could close all extra spaces, set the picture and tell stay to restore ur windows to their saved screen locations


will jailbreak cause any damage to the device Is it possible to cause any damage to the hardware due to jailbreak? Also, will it void the warranty attached to the device?

During the process of jail-breaking an iDevice, there can be complications.  It can sometimes render the device unusable or it can brick the device.

The device being unusable is usually fixable by simply putting the phone in DFU mode and restoring the software back onto the device.  This would cause your device to lose its information such as contacts, emails, photos, apps, app information.  This is usually recoverable because we usually have a back up.

When a device is bricked, it will not function. Your iDevice will not turn on, as if the device has no battery at all or will just sit at the Apple Logo and keep restarting.  This is the worst case scenario.  Sometimes, a brick device can be restored.  This is very very rare occurrence though and never usually happens.

If my iDevice is not working, you take it to the Genius Bar.  Make an appointment and see a Genius.  Now, if you take a jailbroken iDevice to a Genius, they can not service them in their current condition.

Example: I have a battery issue where the battery only lasts half an hour, I take it to the Genius Bar and tell them that this is happening, I am under warranty.  They will look over your device and inspect it to see if something else could be causing the issue before replacement.  They see it is jailbroken.  Usually they will tell you that reason this could be happening is because it is jailbroken.  You did something to the iDevice that you "weren't" supposed to, so it is technically your fault.  Every time this happens though, they will tell you to just go home and restore it back to normal.  Removing the Jailbreak might fix the issue, if it doesn't, bring it back un-jailbroken and they will replace it.

This is just a small example of one of the things that would cause you to go to the Genius Bar to have service done.  But it shows that if your device can be looked through and they can tell it is jailbroken because they can see the software that is on it is obviously jailbroken, they can not act on their warranty until the jailbreak is removed.

This being said, if your device is bricked or you device is at a point where your device can't be powered on or they can not turn it on to see it is jailbroken, then they will assume positive intent and replace it under warranty if it possible about 80% of the time. (Physically Damaged Items are Replaced for a Fee).  This is never a sure fire thing but just optimistic and don't say that you have ever jailbroken your device if they ask.

So, if you are going to try and jailbreak your iDevice, the best thing you can do is learn as much as possible about it before hand.  Know the risks that come with it.  Always have a back up of your information.  Don't update to the newest version of iOS if you are on an older version because it will remove the jailbreak.  And if you are having issues with your iDevice and it might need to be replaced, simply remove the jailbreak before hand, see if that fixes the issue, if not, then take it in.  As long as it is under warranty and it isn't jailbroken, you should be fine, or as long as they can't tell it is jailbroken (IE it won't boot and you obviously didn't smash it or disassemble it and it is totally obvious that you did)

I hope that this helps clear some things up about jail-breaking and helps you out.

It can 'brick' your device leaving it useless.
And your warranty is not valid while jailbroken.


Moving photos from Photos app to my iPhone I have photos in the photos app on my Mac from a previous "back up" and now I would like to bring them back to my phone without having to use iCloud photo library. Is there a way to do it?

I would first send the photos on your iPhone back to your Mac using AirDrop. This way you will get ALL iPhone photos on your mac, which you can then import in the Photos app on your Mac. After that you can then sync all photos back to your iPhone with iTunes:

First make a successful backup of your iPhone with iTunes.

Iphone:

Settings -> General -> AirDrop -> Contacts only

Mac:

Open Finder
Click Go in the menu bar and select AirDrop
Allow me to be discoverd by -> Contacts only

Iphone:

Open Photos
Select all photos
Tap the sharing button
Wait untill AirDrop finds your Mac and click it

Mac:

accept the popup window asking you to accept the photos
Import the Photos to the Photos app
Lastly, you can now sync your iPhone with iTunes to transfer all photos/the albums you want to your iPhone. But note that this will erase the media items synced with the previous library (music,podcasts,audiobooks etc.)


How to clear up space on 16GB iPad for iOS upgrade? I have an iPad mini 16GB and like to upgrade to iOS 7.0.3. this upgrade wants 1.2GB of free storage. However I only have 0.5 GB at the moment.

The largest amount of data are my photostreams. They are about 3 GB can I trim them down (without losing any pictures permanently)?

If you have an iCloud account, you can enable Photo stream and sync it to your Mac or PC, then delete them on iPad, and you can upgrade.

BTW iOS 7.0.2 to 7.0.3 OTA only takes less than 1GB of space, so you can just delete some music or apps you don't want.

back up photos, songs and video to your computer, and then delete some of them.

also you can delete some unused apps on your ipad.


Failure to backup files from Mac partition while in Windows 8 partition I am running Windows 8 and OS X Lion using Bootcamp, and ran into an issue where OS X is no longer bootable (empty gray progress bar on startup).  Googling this error led me to believe it could be any number of things, but regardless it seems the best (least painful) way to solve it is to reinstall OS X.

I am able to run the Windows 8 partition with no problem, and thought I could backup my important files from OS X to an external hard drive and then use the Recovery partition to reinstall OS X.

The issue is that, when I attempt to copy files from the Mac partition (no issue with the Windows partition), the copy/paste dialog 'discovers' all the files and then silently fails without copying.  I have seen a few possibilities for this error, however in following their steps (take ownership of target directory, drag and drop instead of copy/paste), nothing seems to work.

I don't want to clone the partition in case if there is something bad that I would be copying along with the clone, leaving me in the same state I'm currently in.  If it is the case that the HDD is failing, I would still like to have the backup of the information I need.

I did manage to recover a fair amount of the files I needed through Windows, and if anybody else has this issue it is very helpful.  I never even considered this option among the many others, but somehow it managed to pull the majority of my files off and onto an external drive.

I loaded Windows PowerShell in Administrator mode and ran the following script (it was a script to only copy directories that have files, but without modification it worked successfully):

$path = 'C:\source\directory'
$destination = 'e:\destination\directory’

Get-ChildItem $path -Directory |
    Foreach-Object  {if (($_.enumeratefiles() | measure).count -gt 0)
    {
        Copy-Item -path $_.fullname -Destination $destination -Recurse}
    }

Use a Live-CD of Ubuntu (or others) to access your hard drive and backup up all you data.


How to push GMail to iPhone without Exchange? Since Google has ended support for Google Sync aka Microsoft Exchange on Janurary 30th, how can I continue to get mails from GMail pushed?

As far as I know, IMAP does not support push.

I know that there is the offical GMail app, that uses iOS Push notification service, however I would prefer the default Mail App.

This is a great question and I hope that it will get a lot of answers.

(For the sake of this discussion I'll assume by 'push' you mean 'near-instant notification of new messages.' IMAP has something called IMAP IDLE which is similar but I don't think iOS supports it, or maybe Gmail doesn't, or both. Anyway, I don't want that term to become a distraction, I just wanted to make it clear that my working definition of 'push' is "not waiting for Mail.app to check for new messages every X minutes." I'm also not going to get into a debate about whether we "should" or "shouldn't" be "tied to our email" or "overuse quotation marks.")

Here are the solutions that I am aware of:

Pay Google: A paid "Google Apps" account will allow you to use ActiveSync.

Con: I can't find anything to confirm that you can pay for a Gmail account and get ActiveSync back, so you have to change your email address.
Pro: Should work reliably, does not require any 3rd party services.

AwayFind: A paid AwayFind account (pricing information available here: http://awayfind.com/plans.php) will let you get push notifications for messages which match certain. You could set this up to alert you to all of your messages, but my guess is that once you use the service, you'd realize that you really only want alerts for some messages.

Pro: much better and more granular control over notifications. Works with Gmail or Google Apps (or Exchange, IIRC)
Con: 3rd-party service (That's not a 'con' for me… AwayFind uses Google OAuth for login, so you're not giving them your password).  I use and recommend their service, but am not otherwise affiliated with them.

Boxcar: You can forward some/all of your email to Boxcar. I used them before AwayFind. They had some reliability issues a few months(?) ago, but I've heard that's gotten much better. Haven't used them for awhile. I think the iOS

Pro: Low cost. App is free with ads, US$5 to remove ads.
Con: Potential reliability issue, and requires you to forward your email to a 3rd party.

If you want to receive Gmail, contacts, and Calendars on your iPhone, you need to set up 3 different accounts in the mail accounts area:

gmail - this will push your mail. Don't bother trying to turn on calendar.

CalDav - This is in the "other" section of mail account, and you just set up the serve as google.com and fill in your gmail account info. This will load your calendar.

CardDav - Same as CalDav set up, and it will load your contacts.


Is there a way to create new desktop spaces from keyboard only? We all know there is a way to to switch between desktops using keyboard shortcuts,
but can we create new ones using only the keyboard?

You can do it with some AppleScript. This will create a new desktop every time you run it:

tell application "System Events"
    do shell script "/Applications/Mission\\ Control.app/Contents/MacOS/Mission\\ Control"
    tell process "Dock"
        set countDesktops to count buttons of list 1 of group 1
        --new desktop
        click button 1 of group 1
        --switch to new desktop
        repeat until (count buttons of list 1 of group 1) = (countDesktops + 1)
        end repeat
        click button (countDesktops + 1) of list 1 of group 1
    end tell
end tell

You can save this as a Universal Service you can assign a globally-available shortcut key combination to call it.

Credit where credit is due.

No, there isn't a way to create a new space with only the keyboard. You'd still need to use the mouse/trackpad to drag a window to the (+) desktop thumbnail in the top-right corner (or just click on it) to create a new space.


The backup on Server is already in use I have OS X Mavericks with the Server software installed. The server machine is an iMac with a Drobo attached via USB. I use the Server Time Machine service to create a backup server on the network, using the Drobo as the storage device for backups.

I am currently backing-up two Macbooks to this Time Machine Server. Some backups will succeed but every other day or so, I will get an error on both laptops that the backup failed with the following reason: The backup on Server is already in use.

I have only been able to clear this problem by restarting the server.

Does anyone know why this might be occurring and what I might be able to do in order to prevent it from happening?

Thank you.

Just for the completeness of this issue. If you land here and do not use MacOS Server, but a Synology DiskStation, do the following:

Login to your DiskStation as root
Open the main menu
start the resource monitor
switch to connected users
select the blocked user and press disconnect

What worked for me was to reboot the DS, delete and recreate the Time Machine share.

From this post on Synology Forum https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=159&t=86535&start=15#p512709


Are there iOS/iPad apps that work well to edit XML? I'm surprised that a google search doesn't turn up dozens of XML editors for ipad. All I can find are generic code text editors that happen to "support" XML. Well duh.

I'm looking for an ipad app that lets me edit arbitrary XML as something other than a generic text box with code completion. It could at least give me an expandable tree view of nested tags for example. And it could allow me to add a child tag or duplicate an existing one. Or do a structured search of the document based on identified symbols, or even some automated manipulation based on symbols. One of the main impetuses for creating XML in the first place was to enable a diversity of kinds of manipulation tools.

Does anything exist on ipad specifically for editing XML?

Diet Coda, and Koder support XML syntax highlighting also. I use them both for editing XML, JSON, etc.

Textastic is an iPad app that provides "Syntax highlighting for many languages:

  HTML, XML, Objective-C, C++, C#, PHP, SQL, JavaScript, CSS, shell scripts and a lot more
  Code completion for HTML, CSS and PHP functions

I've used it and it seems to work well.


How can I rotate a video? I just recorded a video on my phone, but when I play it on my Mac it's in the wrong orientation.

How can I rotate the video by 90 degrees so that I can upload it to youtube?

Free solutions are preferred.

I just found out how to do it using YouTube's Video Editor which has rotate left/right buttons.

But this is not an answer how to rotate on Mac.

Use QuickTime to Rotate Videos
You don't need to use any 3rd party tools to do this. It's built right in to QuickTime Player.
Any file that can be opened in QuickTime can be rotated by choosing Edit > Rotate Left (or Right) or by typing Command-Shift-L / R.
If you alter a movie file in this way and attempt to close the file (Command-W) you will be prompted to save your changes. Save them to a new file and you will have a newly rotated video.
Share your Video on YouTube with QuickTime
QuickTime also has a built-in way to share your video on YouTube. With the video open (and correctly rotated now) select Share > YouTube...

Just open QT and it automatically rotates it. Then simply export it.


How to enable Subscribed Calendar to be in read/write mode? As today, any Subscribed Calendar is added as Read Only to the iCal Application

to confirm that. just double click in a day with the subscribed calendar selected and you will get this annoying popup message

What should I do to enable read/write mode into the subscribed calendar, as it supports both ways (I created the URL and works great with Thunderbird w/Lightning)

Problem also comes that in iPad/iX happens the same situation, and all I wanted was to be able to create and edit events to by calendar

The owner grants & controls read / write access. You'd have to ask who owns the calendar.


Can't update or install apps iOS 10.3.3

This question is similar to this, but the apps aren't even starting to update and I don't have the blue dot next to the app name on the homescreen.

I have 15 apps available for update on my iPhone SE, but when I attempt to update them, it doesn't work.

When I try to update apps, the spinning wheels show up but don't change to the ones that show progress. Even after a while the app updates are still spinning. I can still use the apps while this is happening. The "Update All" button also doesn't work properly. Clicking on the spinning wheel just launches the app.

When installing new apps I have the same problem.

Sideloading apps seems to work fine.

Storage space is not the problem as I have more than 1 GB free. I don't have restrictions enabled either.

Troubleshooting:

Restarting
Clearing App Store cache(tapping navigation bar 10 times)
Hard resetting(home button + power button)
Signing out and signing back in
Updating each individually
Turning on automatic updates

This is a software issue. What I suggest is backing up your iPhone with iCloud backup (Settings -> Your Name -> iCloud -> iCloud Backup -> Backup Now - Unless it has already recently backed up), then make sure you get your wifi password and Apple ID password.

***If your Apple account sends you verification codes all of the time you need to add another number to your account in Settings -> Your name (or iCloud) -> Password & Security -> Edit to add trusted phone number (you wont be able to get the code when you sign back in)>.

After you've backed up. Sign out of iCloud, erase the iPhone (Settings -> General -> Reset -> Erase all Content And Settings) and then set up the phone, but restore from the iCloud backup. You'll need wifi, Apple ID account login (and a verification code from another trusted number if your account sends you verification codes). Once thats done the phone will look the same, messages, apps, photos, notes, calendar events, etc.

After that, then try to update your Apps.

I do not know where you came from, but as you may know, Apple Co., has restricted some coutries from taking new updates and apps.
As soon as apple find out your ip is from that specific country, you will be blocked, you will be lucky if apple won't block your apple ID.

How to solve this problem?
You should use VPN to change your ip to another one from another country.

I hope it will help..


How to change the default behaviour of the fullscreen/maximize button? There is a question that deals with the different behaviour of the fullscreen button in the window bar. There, it is shown that by doing:

⌥ + ⇧ + Click on green or outer right icon (plus icon)

I can maximize a window in both width and height to the current screen.

Now I am wondering if I can make this behaviour standard just by clicking the icon. For an extra bonus, I wonder if there is a keyboard shortcut to achieve the same thing.

Spectacle has been discontinued. They recommend using Rectangle.

Use spectacle, a free open source app that has a bunch of handy window management shortcuts.
While it doesn't change the default behavior of the green button, it makes it superfluous for me to do so as I can do everything using keyboard shortcuts without using the mouse.
For full screen, press:
cmd + option + F
It also has a bunch of options for 1/2 screen, 1/3 screen, top half, bottom half, etc.

Hi not sure if I've misread the OP - but in Yosemite, to enter full screen mode you just click the green icon at the top left of the open window to make it full screen and click it again to reduce back to original size - as in cough Windows


Rent movie on iPad, watch on Laptop or Apple TV I rented a movie on my iPad but there isn't enough space on it to download the movie so now I'm trying to either watch it on my AppleTV or laptop through iTunes, but I can't seem to find how to do that. Is it not possible?

No, it is not possible.

See this Apple Support Document for more information:

  Movies rented on iPad cannot be transferred to other devices and can only be viewed on iPad.

You'll have to expand the section on "Movie rentals on iPad" to see the above quote.

Your only option is to free up enough space to watch it on your iPad.

That is a disgrace. My parents bought an Apple TV on the promise of compatibility between Apple devices, and yet now they find that for some bizarre reason the rules are different for their iPad. They rented a film on iTunes on the iPad whilst they were out of the house, and found that it could only be watched on the iPad, unlike films rented on their MacBook which can be watched on all devices. There was no warning or disclaimer about this, only a bit of small print on the we page linked to. I think that is a con.


How can I convert an AT&T iPhone 3GS to a Verizon iPhone 3GS? I have someone who is not using their AT&T iPhone 3GS. They are willing to give it to me since they have a later model. How can I convert an AT&T iPhone 3GS to a Verizon iPhone 3GS?

What hardware changes need to be made?

You can't convert a GSM iPhone to run on the CDMA network, unfortunately. Neither the functional nor the cosmetic components are interchangeable.

If your friend is willing to give you his iPhone and if it's still in decent condition you could probably sell it for enough to fund the purchase of a Verizon iPhone. If it's not in great condition and you still have the urge to tinker, you may be able to find cheap cosmetic parts to restore it to salable condition.

It sadly just can't be converted. Back then once you bought it with at&t there was no way to change it to verizon. Also i don't even think it can support at&t.


Enter "vertical bar" (or "pipe symbol") in Windows I have my MacBook late 2008 sometimes running Windows 7 via BootCamp. The keyboard has a German layout. Pretty much like the Wikimedia image below except that the blue symbols in the lowest line are not accessible.

How could I enter the vertical bar | via my keyboard?

Unfortunately Right Alt + < does not seem to work. (However, I can enter @ with Right Alt + Q et al. as I can do on external keyboards.)

Update2: From what I can tell from the languages settings, the Windows layout is missing the <-key between Left Shift and Y. What layout would provide it?

Update 3: On a co-workers current MacBook Pro its working as expected.

I'd also be happy with some comments suggesting ways to have it entered. I'm tiered of copying it from Wikipedia every time.

My US English Qwerty keyboard has it as Shift-\, with the \ key right above the Return key.

I was working on Linux Mint Live on a USB I found out that its default keyboard was different when piping commands in terminal. I could guess that the tilde sign on UK qwerty keyboard is alternative for that (shift and hash sign next to ENTER key)


Can I use AppleScript to paste a web text clip appended with source attribution and a timestamp, while maintaining embedded links? Complete newbie here so please let me know if I need to clarify or otherwise improve my question. I have searched multiple times using different keywords and have not been able to find a solution to my issue, or make the ones I hoped were a solution work for me.

I want to create a AppleScript script that when triggered will allow me to paste a web text clip appended with source attribution and a timestamp, without loosing any embedded links within the selected text.

Here is a screen shot of what I want to achieve:

Not knowing much of anything programming wise, I was able to cobble together the following AppleScript script after a few days of web searching.

-- clear the clipboard
tell application "Finder"
    set the clipboard to " "
    delay 0.1
end tell

-- copy selected text
tell application "Safari"
    activate
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Safari"
            keystroke "c" using {command down}
            delay 0.1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

-- open and paste web clip into specified TextEdit file
tell application "TextEdit"
    activate
    open "Macintosh HD:Users:Web:Documents:Web Text Clips:Web_Text_Clips.rtf"
    delay 0.2
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "TextEdit"
            keystroke "v" using {command down}
            delay 0.1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

-- get, format and copy source info and timestamp
tell application "Safari"
    activate
    set theLongDate to current date
    set theWindowName to the name of the front window
    set theURL to the URL of the front document
    set writeString to "- - - - - " & return & "From: " & theURL & return & "Page Title: " & theWindowName & return & "Date: " & theLongDate
    set the clipboard to writeString
end tell

-- paste source info and timestamp into predefined position of the specified TextEdit file
tell application "TextEdit"
    activate
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "TextEdit"
            keystroke (ASCII character 31) using command down
            keystroke return
            keystroke return
            keystroke "v" using {command down}
            delay 0.1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

-- copy content of specified TextEdit file
tell application "TextEdit"
    activate
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "TextEdit"
            keystroke "a" using {command down}
            keystroke "c" using {command down}
            delay 0.1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

-- delete content of specified TextEdit file
tell application "TextEdit"
    activate
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "TextEdit"
            keystroke "a" using {command down}
            keystroke "x" using {command down}
            delay 0.1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

-- save specified TextEdit file and quit TextEdit
tell application "TextEdit"
    save "Macintosh HD:Users:Web:Documents:Web Text Clips:Web_Text_Clips.rtf"
    quit
end tell

I was forced into this workaround because when I used the set command the embedded links got expunged from the selected web text.

While this script does work, it is quite cumbersome and slow. I have tried all sorts of different things, including some shell script commands, but so far nothing else has worked.

Can anyone help me in creating a more elegant and faster script that still maintains the embedded links in the selected web text?

I am running macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

I'm a bit confused by your script, it seems to copy and paste and delete and save, so if I misunderstood your intended use, I apologize. It seems to me like you want a file saved in that Web Clips folder that just contains what you had selected in Safari with the link, title, and date. I would write this as an HTM file rather than a text file, and here's the code I used with inline comments.

set myFolder to ((path to users folder) as text) & "Web:Documents:Web Text Clips:"
set myFile to myFolder & "Web_Text_Clips.htm"

tell application "Safari"
set theLongDate to current date
set theWindowName to the name of the front window
set selectedText to (do JavaScript "(''+getSelection())" in document 1) --use javascript to get what part of the page is selected
set theURL to the URL of the front document
end tell

set myFolder to POSIX path of (myFolder as alias) --convert to posix path for use in the command line
set myFile to quoted form of (myFolder & myFile) --append the file name to the end of the file path
do shell script "touch " & myFile --create the htm file

--Add content to the HTM document
newHTM(myFile) --Add the HTM doctype and opening tags.
addElement("p", "--------", myFile) --"p" is the htm tag for a paragraph, and we want this to be it's own paragraph.
addElement("p", "From: " & theURL & "", myFile) --a bit more complex, adding a paragraph with a link ( is the link tag)
addElement("p", "Page Title: " & theWindowName, myFile) --Adding a paragraph for the Page Title
addElement("p", "Date: " & theLongDate, myFile) --Adding a paragraph for the Date line.
closeHTM(myFile) --Add the closing HTML tags.

------------HANDLERS------------
on newHTM(filePath)
    do shell script "printf '<!doctype html>\n\n\n\t<title>Web Clips</title>\n\n\n\n\n\t' > " & filePath
end newHTM

on closeHTM(filePath)
    do shell script "printf '\n\t\n' >> " & filePath
end closeHTM

on addElement(elem, htm, filePath)
    set htm to "\t\t<" & elem & ">" & htm & "</" & elem & ">\n"
    do shell script "printf '" & htm & "' >> " & filePath
end addElement

This script preserves the link by using HTML to "embed" the link. It will open in your default browser. It appeared to me, from your script, that this file only contains the latest web clipping, so that's how I wrote it. If, however, you want this file to contain a list of web clippings, the script would need to be edited. Either way, I hope this gives you a good start. For readability, I put the adding of html code in handlers below the body of the code.


Magic Mouse Gesture not working OS X Mavericks I am using Magic Mouse with my iMac having OS X Mavericks 10.9.

Everything was working fine since today morning, I realized that my Magic Mouse is only responding to scrolling and primary, secondary click. All other gestures of Magic Mouse were not working.

And another issue which I don't know it is related or not is that Google Chrome does not scroll. Restarting Chrome fixes problem for 2-5 minutes but not permanently.

I use all gestures frequently for spaces, zooming, swapping, navigating, etc and I am having very difficulty without these features.

Things I have tried:

Checking/Resetting Magic Mouse settings from system preferences
Turn Magic Mouse on and off
Disconnect/Connect Magic Mouse
Restart iMac, press power button and "command+shift+p+r" and from troubleshoot screen, verify/repair Disk Utility (OS Disk)
Connect mouse with other iMac (mouse is fine)

After all these things, problem still exists. I have searched it in Google and I have found out that many people have received this problem but I couldn't find any solution.

Does anyone here know about this issue and have some solution??

I solved the same problem by going to mouse in preference and unblocking the gesture the second and third gesture leaving only the "Swipe between pages" enabled.

Disable the gesture and the re enable it again...


Are there any improvements in the Mavericks Terminal app? Most OS X updates have included a few tweaks to the Terminal app. I know that Mavericks has upgraded a lot of command-line tools, but I haven't seen any reports of changes in Terminal.app itself. Has anyone noticed any?

I believe Mavericks added pwd restoration (after quitting and relaunching)


How to convert mov to swf? I have a QuickTime .mov file which I want to convert to swf format. Is there any tool for Mac? I already search here for a similar question but couldn't find any. The google search directed me to VisualHub which was discontinued and doesn't support Snow Leopard.

Is there a method using an Adobe CS5 app? If not what are the free solutions out there?

TIA

Never mind. I found an answer on Adobe website. For those who are interested, here is the link.

http://www.videotoflashmac.com/

That's just a simple google search.

You can also use compressor to encode to h.264 and then change the file extension to .flv


Downloading Movies on Google Play in HD I can't download Google Play Movies in HD on my iPad Pro.  It streams it in HD, but it won't download it in HD, and I can't find a setting that chooses one way or the other.

Download videos to your iPad:

Make sure your device is connected to Wi-Fi or your mobile network.
Open the Google Play Movies & TV app Play Movies .
Tap Menu  Library.
Next to the movie or TV episode, you’d like to download, touch the download icon .

Note: To remove or stop a download in progress, tap the download icon again.

Source: Google Support


How do I change the e-mail address that receives Apple Pay notifications? When I submit a transaction using Apple Pay, all of my notification e-mails go to the wrong address (one of mine, but not the correct one).
On iOS, the relevant setting (Settings > Wallet & Apple Pay > Transaction Defaults) already has the correct e-mail address, but it's not used. I've also added the correct details within the Apple Pay payment screen but that isn't used or even remembered for subsequent purchases either.
How do I select a different address for use with Apple Pay?

From the Apple Pay Support page:

Update your billing and contact information
Learn how to update your billing and shipping information for the cards that you use with Apple Pay.
iPhone or iPad

To change your billing information, go to Settings > Wallet & Apple
Pay, tap a card, then tap what you want to update.
To update your email address, phone number, and shipping address, go to Settings >
Wallet & Apple Pay, then choose what you want to update.

It looks like the email address in wallet & Pay settings pulls from your contact card, not just what you input in wallet & Pay settings. Try adding the email that you want to use into your contact card before you select it in wallet & Pay settings and see if that helps it stick.


How can I make my 27" iMac and my 27" Thunderbolt display the same height? I'm using an external 27" Thunderbolt display with my 27" iMac and I want the iMac and display to have the same height. By default, the Thunderbolt display is about an inch shorter than the iMac, which is quite annoying.

I'm sure this problem comes up all the time. Is there any solution for evening out the heights? I'm open to something as hacky as "this book is the right height – put it under the display."

I'd recommend buying this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Thunderbolt-Kid-Memoir/dp/0767919378/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1330596630&sr=8-7

It's exactly 1" thick, put it under the monitor.

This is such a massive oversight by the apple design team, I myself use books to prop up the display, just had to find the right combo.

Good luck


Changing Notification Sound in Yosemite/El Capitan the new "ding!" notification sound in Yosemite really gets on my nerves (and I don't like any of the default ones), I would like to add (or replace one of those with) a custom sound I have.

I found out a dirty solution is digging into
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ToneLibrary.framework/Versions/A/Resources/AlertTones

and replacing one of the default tones files with my own, converted to .caf (core audio file) using the afconvert command line tool.

Is there any better way of doing this?

EDIT: Due to the new System Integrity Protection feature in El Capitan, the previous solution does not work anymore (without disabling SIP). Is there any way of adding a new notification sound?

Yosemite Instructions:

Convert the sound you want to use to .caf using afconvert:

afconvert -f caff -d LEI16@22050 input_file output.caf

Go to
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ToneLibrary.framework/Versions/A/Resources/AlertTones/Modern

Since I wasn't sure just adding the new .caf file to this folder would work, I made a copy (backup) of sms_alert_note.caf and then replaced sms_alert_note.caf with the new file. Since it doesn't work at first (I think you have to somehow reload the framework), I restarted. After restarting the default "Note" sound was replaced by my own sound.

EDIT: El Capitan (dirty) solution (without disabling SIP)

First: prepare the .caf file as instructed above using afconvert.
Reboot your Mac into recovery mode (hold cmd+R while booting). Open the Terminal from the utilities menu and type diskutil list to get a list of the connected disks. Make a note of the name of the disk containing the boot volume

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD           1.0 TB     disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             784.2 MB   disk0s3`

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD          +1.0 TB     disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 8D6D5ACA-6AFF-4F53-9E61-2D83A2536501
                                 Unencrypted

In this case the boot disk is disk0 containing the boot volume "Macintosh HD. Now type diskutil mountDisk disk0 to mount the disk (replace disk0 with whatever your disk name actually was).

Your startup disk should now be mounted in /Volumes/Macintosh HD(or whatever your boot volume's name is), cd to that location: cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD and type chroot.

Now you have full access to your boot volume without having to deal with SIP.

Go to the folder where alert sounds are stored
    cd /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ToneLibrary.framework/Versions/A/Resources/AlertTones/Modern

Make a backup of the original sound you want to replace (I'm replacing the default 'note' sound)
    mv sms_alert_note.caf sms_alert_note.caf.bak
Copy the .caf file you created earlier to the folder:
    cp /path/to/new/notification.caf ./sms_alert_note.caf
(note: simply adding a new file won't work as it won't be recognized by Messages, you'll have to replace one of the existing files)

Reboot. You will now be able to use your custom sound by selecting the name of the notification you replaced in the AlertTones/Modern folder in Messages -> Preferences -> Message Received Sound. If you replaced sms_alert_note.caf this will be "Note (Default)".

I don't expect this to hold through system updates, but it might if the AlertTones folder is not modified.

An easier way in Yosemite: open mail>preferences>General(it's the first tab)>new message sound>add/remove custom sound.


compress Long size file into multiple limited size xz file I have files of 28GB size.

I want to compress using .xz LZMA, with .xz chuncks of 1G (1024MB) size files...

MyFile.vdi -> MyFile00.xz, MyFile01.xz, MyFile02.xz...

How do it in macOS?

EDIT

sh-3.2# xz -ek9vfc Centos\ 7\ 1511\ 64bits_20170629\(with_dukto\).vdi
xz: Compressed data cannot be written to a terminal
xz: Try `xz --help' for more information.
sh-3.2#

SECOND EDIT

USING

# xz -ek9vfc Centos\ 7\ 1511\ 64bits_20170629\(with_dukto\).vdi

# xz -e9vfc < Centos\ 7\ 1511\ 64bits_20170629\(with_dukto\).vdi | split -b 1024m - Centos\ 7\ 1511\ 64bits_20170629\(with_dukto\).vdi.xz

Here the output.

# ls -al Centos\ 7\ 1511\ 64bits_20170629\(with_dukto\).vdi*
-rw-------@ 1 _unknown  _unknown  17470324736 Jun 29 23:47 Centos 7 1511 64bits_20170629(with_dukto).vdi
-rw-r--r--  1 _unknown  _unknown   3898588580 Aug 22 22:19 Centos 7 1511 64bits_20170629(with_dukto).vdi.xz
-rw-r--r--  1 _unknown  _unknown   1073741824 Aug 23 12:15 Centos 7 1511 64bits_20170629(with_dukto).vdi.xzaa
-rw-r--r--  1 _unknown  _unknown   1073741824 Aug 23 13:44 Centos 7 1511 64bits_20170629(with_dukto).vdi.xzab
-rw-r--r--  1 _unknown  _unknown   1073741824 Aug 23 18:17 Centos 7 1511 64bits_20170629(with_dukto).vdi.xzac
-rw-r--r--  1 _unknown  _unknown    677363108 Aug 23 21:44 Centos 7 1511 64bits_20170629(with_dukto).vdi.xzad
sh-3.2#

Here the help

# xz -h
Usage: xz [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Compress or decompress FILEs in the .xz format.

  -z, --compress      force compression
  -d, --decompress    force decompression
  -t, --test          test compressed file integrity
  -l, --list          list information about .xz files
  -k, --keep          keep (don't delete) input files
  -f, --force         force overwrite of output file and (de)compress links
  -c, --stdout        write to standard output and don't delete input files
  -0 ... -9           compression preset; default is 6; take compressor *and*
                      decompressor memory usage into account before using 7-9!
  -e, --extreme       try to improve compression ratio by using more CPU time;
                      does not affect decompressor memory requirements
  -T, --threads=NUM   use at most NUM threads; the default is 1; set to 0
                      to use as many threads as there are processor cores
  -q, --quiet         suppress warnings; specify twice to suppress errors too
  -v, --verbose       be verbose; specify twice for even more verbose
  -h, --help          display this short help and exit
  -H, --long-help     display the long help (lists also the advanced options)
  -V, --version       display the version number and exit

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Report bugs to <lasse.collin@tukaani.org> (in English or Finnish).
XZ Utils home page: <http://tukaani.org/xz/>
sh-3.2#

Use split.

Example:
xz -e9vfc < yourFile.vdi | split -b 1024m - yourFile.vdi.xz.

This will split yourFile.vdi into compressed chunks of 1GB, suffixed by aa-zz.

To reassemble, do cat yourFile.vdi.xz.* > yourFile.xz

7-zip is MORE capable, but less ubiquitous. You'll want to checksum your backups and verify it every once in a while. Have a look at a GUI package of p7zip. It will let you select compression levels and volume sizes of 1GB... If you're doing this in an unattended batchjob, p7zip is dirtier. I can find one of my snippets if you need it.

A nice thing about xz though, is that you can assign n cores to a job. I believe it's the -T flag. Remember to nice it to 20 if you intend to use that mac for something other than a big paperweight if you use all cores at once.

If a text file, you could use the terminal command split to split your initial file into smaller files and then compress them all in a batch file. The man page on split will tell you how to determine the size of smaller files. The split command will make as many output files as needed based on how large you told it to makes each file. Using batch compress makes this pretty time efficient.


Messages wont open: the Messages database is being updated Recently on my new macbook when I try to open up the messages app it won't let me open it and gives me the error:

Messages is updating...

The Messages database is being upgraded, please wait while it finishes or Quit Messages and relaunch it later.

And no matter what I do it won't go away and work.

I have tried to copy over the messages folder in Library from another computer but it didn't help at all. this is really starting to bug me and I would appreciate any help towards fixing this issue.

My macbook is running the latest version of Yosemite and is the 2014 edition

I've been getting the same thing on and off for a long time now. I wait for any period of time and still get the same, most always a reboot of the system makes it work again...frustrating!

I'm running El Capitan 10.11.3


Can you charge an iPhone 5 from a standard, non-Apple Micro USB cable? Someone who has the new iPhone 5 said you can charge it from a regular Micro USB port but he's not tested it.

Can you?

Yes - just get a simple pass through adapter to plug the male USB into an adapter that fits in the lightning slot.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD820ZM/A/lightning-to-micro-usb-adapter

There are also knock off and legitimate third party adapters being sold, so you can pick your price point / fit and finish / support sweet spot.

Too scared to try as Verizon Wireless said it will fry your Iphone 5


Does iCloud backup only backup non-deleted pictures? I have deleted some photos on my iPad (both from camera roll and photo stream) and I never want them to be found. I heard that you can use "iCloud backup" to restore your stuff in case your iPad crashes or whatever. If at some point I were to backup my iPad, would those    pictures still be found even though I have deleted them? If so, how can they be gotten  rid of forever? I know this probably sounds very strange, but it would be nice to know just in case of emergency.

The pictures won't return as long as you did a backup after you deleted them from your device.


Why is my camera not working? I don't know why my camera is not working, I am sure it is a software problem, it just shows a black page. All features are working but it doesn't show an image. It is not working on other apps, like Instagram, as well.
The front camera is not working. I have tried to "Reset All Aetting" option but it is not working neither.
I upload a photo which is the screenshot when I run camera
How can I solve this problem?

From another user's experience on the Apple Support Community Forum:

Try this:

Go to Settings > General Reset
Tap Reset All Settings

Although this won't erase content on your device, you'll have to reset WiFi settings and sign in to iCloud again along with other custom settings.

Quote:

  I was able to get the camera to work again!
  go to Settings, General, Reset and tap Reset All Settings.
  This won't erase everything but you'll have to set up your WiFi and sign in to iCloud again.

EDIT If the above suggestions along with resetting the phone etc. doesn't help, one would be advised to take the phone back to Apple or an Authorized Apple Service center for testing.  Depending on the age of the device, they may cover repairs under warranty.

okay this sounds weird but it happened to me and it was a new case.... it could also be water damage but a new case or skin is probably the problem!!!:)


How can I use an existing Time Machine backup with my new computer? I've just replaced my existing MacBook Pro with a new MacBook Air.  I've got 18 months of Time Machine backups from the old computer.  I'd like to configure my new computer to use the old computer's Time Machine backups, so the new computer picks up where the old one left off.  Is this possible?  If so, how?

I didn't restore the new computer from a Time Machine backup because my old computer used more disk space than my new computer.  There was a lot of cruft as well, so I decided to start from scratch on the new one.  I'm slowly pulling off individual files and settings from a clone of the old computer's hard drive.

I found the following solution here:

sudo tmutil associatedisk -a "/Volumes/Macintosh HD" "/Volumes/Time Machine Disk/Backups.backupdb/John Doe's MacBook/Latest/Macintosh HD"

I am far from having knowledge about this stuff, but it seems to me one of the Apple Support people had me disconnect the power from the Airport Extreme and restart it.
I just "cloned" my lap top pro from old to a new lap top and got grief from Time Machine. I shut everything down, and the next thing I see "Would you like to inherit from Airport", so I clicked "Inherit".
Woola, I looked up at the screen and it's working.


iPad and MacBook Pro won't both connect to my wifi My MacBook Pro and my iPad wont both connect to my wifi at the same time. Right now I'm on my iPad and my MacBook has the "no Internet connection" alert...Although there's a check mark by my network name on the drop down list.

Last night when I was on my laptop my iPad wouldn't connect.

I have no idea how to fix this problem.  I've tried unplugging/restarting my router as well as manually joining my network.

The router IP might not be http://192.168.0.1

On your Mac go into System Preferences and select Network then Wi-Fi in the left hand list.

Just under the Status: line it should tell you your current IP address, make a note of it.

At the bottom right click on Advanced. Now select TCP/IP and Configure IPv4: should be set to Use DHCP. This pane will also tell you your router address a little further down.

Now you can point your browser to the correct IP address for your router and see what it is saying.

You can also open up Settings on your iPad and go to Wi-Fi then click on the little 'i' in a circle icon and it will tell you the IP address it is using and the address of the router.

If the IP address being used by both is the same then there's your problem.

Check your router config:

First check your IP and gateway IP in your laptop.
Open browser and type in gateway IP:

  192.168.0.1

Login using your router username/password (Default - admin/admin or admin/password)
Check for router status and click on it
Inside router status can you see IP address, gateway & DNS set?
If not then you need to config the router

Let me know how it goes.


Can send text on iMessage to one person but not pictures? I've been having problems with one of my contacts (zero problems with anyone else)
I can send text iMessages and they go no problem, but all picture messages fail.
I can FaceTime her fine, I can send pictures to everyone else. It's just baffling me. Any ideas?

I had this issue too. The person who is trying to receive the image needs to reset their phone. To reset just hold the home button and the lock button until you see the apple sign. This solve my issues and now we send images again both ways

this maybe helpful if you are still having issues.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201287


iPhone 5S broken screen root access without iTunes authorization I have an iPhone 5S with broken screen.
I need to save my photos to my PC/Mac; I can't authorize iTunes cause of course the screen is broken and I don't have iCloud, so the only way should be a root access, does anyone knows how to?

Software

iExplorer claims to grant you root access to iDevices without requiring a jailbreak:

  With iExplorer, you can access more files and folders without modifying (jailbreaking) your device than ever before. Need to access photos on your iPhone or iPod? Can do. Want to access the files and folders of your device's apps? Done. How about browsing through your iTunes backups? Check. What about the media folders containing your iTunes purchases? We've got that too. What about files in apps that are synced to iCloud? Yes, even that.*

iBrowse is a simillar, free software by the same company, but it doesn't grant root access (which I'm not sure you need in order to access photos).

The "Windows" Method

From an answer on Apple's support forums:

  I plugged the phone into my Windows Computer and when it recognizes the phone is plugged in, a dialogue box pops up that asks if you want to import pictures and videos. You click import and it will pull everything off the phone and place it in a folder with the date as the name and put it in your pictures or my pictures folder. From there you can access the photos & videos!!

I'm not sure this works either, update in the comments so I can modify my answer.

Old Guide

I also found a guide, written in 2008, and doesn't involve any 3rd party software: (Not sure it still works)

  Connect your iPhone/iPod touch and launch Applications >Image Capture.
  Go to Preferences >General.
  Under Camera, select Image Capture in the “When a camera is connected, open:” option, and then click OK. Now when you connect your
  iPhone/iPod touch, Image Capture will be launched and you can choose
  where you want to download your images.

Also had that issue, used linux to format, then used photorec on the empty "disk"


How do I disable or get rid of the startup sound my Mac makes? Everytime I turn on my Macbook Pro it makes a start up noise. This is annoying since there is no volume or ability to turn it off. I just don't want the sound to play at all.

How do I disable this startup sound?

You can use StartSound.PrefPane which basically just sets the volume to 0 when you shutdown and then turns it back up after login.

If you keep your volume off when you shut down your mac/laptop it wont make the sound when you start it up again!

I don't know if this is true but its what my laptop does :)!

Hope this helps!


Prevent iOS device from sleeping if plugged to charger This is available in Developer options in Android's system Settings. I'm trying to look for an equivalent in iOS. This is great if I want the screen to be always visible for screen updates/notifications. No problem with battery since it is plugged in anyway.

Is there a Jailbreak tweak for this?

This setting applies for both plugged and unplugged. I'm looking for something specific to a plugged device.

In the past there was an Cydia App called ScreenDimmer.

I hope you can find this application via your iPhone and fix your problem.

One of its features:

  Doesn't dim the screen if the battery is being charged.

Activator means I can customise my phone down to the tiniest detail so it works exactly as I want it to work.


Trash folder is not emptying because of the P ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́A ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́I ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́N ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́.jpg file When I cd ~/.Trash in the terminal, it shows that there is a folder Downloads, and inside the Downloads folder, another folder Reactions, and inside Reactions, there is a file called

Shutting down or restarting the computer does not work to empty the trash. Also, I should say that the file is hidden and is not showing when I open the Trash folder. Is it a virus? If yes, how do I get rid of it?

In terminal, using:  cd ~/.Trash/Downloads/Reactions and then ls -al, shows the jpg file.

(shown in the screenshot of the file because I could not copy and paste the text here in this question)

drwxrwxrwx  3 username  staff  102 Jan 19 14:36 .

drwxr-xr-x  3 username  staff  102 Jan 19 16:09 ..

Update 1
 I moved the Reactions out of the Downloads and emptied the trash. Now there is only Reactions left with the .jpg inside.

 By running ls -aBeil ~/.Trash/Reactions in terminal, following is the result:

 36328284 drwxrwxrwx  3 username  staff  102 Jan 19 14:36 .
 68013143 drwx------  3 username  staff  102 Jan 20 14:55 ..
Update 2
 From cd ~/.Trash/Reactions > rm 'P > enter spacetab'return
 Result is as follows:

Update 3
 Below is the result from unset LANG ; ls -aBeil ~/.Trash/Reactions:

Update 4
 Below is the result from utility disk verification:

Update 5
 I just repaired the disk through Disk Utility using command + R access after system restart. Then, .jpg file is not hidden anymore and can be emptied on trash. Below you can see the screenshots.

 Thank you all for your comments and answers. Special thanks to daniel Azuelos, patrix and klanomath.

This answer may not really answer the question but provide some information what might had happened.

I've downloaded the torrent with 4Chan pictures containing the Pain.jpg and two other pics with hebrew chars.
Here is the diabolic culprit ;-)

ls -aBeil shows:

mymac:Reactions user$ ls -aBeil
ls: P ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́A ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́I ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́N ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́.jpg: No such file or directory
total 528
581705 drwxrwxrwx  6 user  staff     204 Jan 21 12:08 .
401304 drwx------+ 6 user  staff     204 Jan 21 11:57 ..
 0: group:everyone deny delete
582449 -rw-r--r--@ 1 user  staff    6148 Jan 21 12:08 .DS_Store
582261 -rw-r--r--  1 user  staff    4792 Jan 21 12:05 ה̌͐͊͒̾͆יͩ́א ͭ̆צ̿̒̃͛ו͋פͯ͆̉ה͑͑ͧ̇ͪ͆.jpg
582094 -rw-r--r--  1 user  staff  253804 Jan 21 12:06 ה̌͐͊͒̾͆יͩ́א ͭ̆צ̿̒̃͛ו͋פͯ͆̉ה͑͑ͧ̇ͪ͆.xcf

lsof -- . * shows:

mymac:Reactions user$ lsof -- . *
lsof: status error on P ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́A ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́I ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́N ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́.jpg: No such file or directory
COMMAND  PID     USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF   NODE NAME
bash    1290 user  cwd    DIR    1,2      204 581705 .
lsof    1345 user  cwd    DIR    1,2      204 581705 .
lsof    1346 user  cwd    DIR    1,2      204 581705 .

All files were visible in the Finder except .DS_Store of course. Pain.jpg had a default icon and couldn't be opened. After moving Pain.jpg to the Downloads folder (at ~12:13 - check log below), waiting a few seconds and moving it back into the Reactions folder the preview icon appeared and the file could be opened.

ls -aBeil now shows:

mymac:Reactions user$ ls -aBeil
total 616
581705 drwxrwxrwx  6 user  staff     204 Jan 21 12:14 .
401304 drwx------+ 6 user  staff     204 Jan 21 12:14 ..
 0: group:everyone deny delete
582449 -rw-r--r--@ 1 user  staff    6148 Jan 21 12:14 .DS_Store
581871 -rw-r--r--  1 user  staff   44041 Jan 21 12:01 P ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́A ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́I ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́N ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́.jpg
582261 -rw-r--r--  1 user  staff    4792 Jan 21 12:05 ה̌͐͊͒̾͆יͩ́א ͭ̆צ̿̒̃͛ו͋פͯ͆̉ה͑͑ͧ̇ͪ͆.jpg
582094 -rw-r--r--  1 user  staff  253804 Jan 21 12:06 ה̌͐͊͒̾͆יͩ́א ͭ̆צ̿̒̃͛ו͋פͯ͆̉ה͑͑ͧ̇ͪ͆.xcf

lsof -- . * shows:

mymac:Reactions user$ lsof -- . *
COMMAND  PID     USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF   NODE NAME
bash    1290 user  cwd    DIR    1,2      204 581705 .
lsof    1390 user  cwd    DIR    1,2      204 581705 .
lsof    1391 user  cwd    DIR    1,2      204 581705 .

The corresponding log entries (sorry for the irritating hebrew chars cluttering the entries - at least editing and viewing them in Google Chrome - it's really difficult to format it at all):

21/01/15 12:07:10,734 QuickLookUIHelper[1231]: CoreAnimation: failed to create OpenGL context
21/01/15 12:07:32,702 sandboxd[346]: ([1180]) mdworker(1180) deny file-read-xattr /Users/user/Desktop/Reactions ()
21/01/15 12:08:03,862 QuickLookUIHelper[1248]: CoreAnimation: failed to create OpenGL context
21/01/15 12:13:41,303 Finder[325]: sandbox extension creation failed: file system representation creation error for path: [/Users/user/Downloads/Reactions/P ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́A ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́I ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́N ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́.jpg]
21/01/15 12:13:41,303 Finder[325]: __CFPasteboardCreateSandboxExtensionDataFromCFData : failed to obtain sandbox extension data for url [file:///.file/id=6571367.581871]
21/01/15 12:13:41,304 Finder[325]: Failed to obtain a valid sandbox extension for item: [789514] of flavor: [public.file-url] from the pasteboard.  Because the sandbox extension failed to be generated..
21/01/15 12:13:41,304 Finder[325]: Failed to get a sandbox extensions for itemIdentifier (789514).  The data for the sandbox extension was still proxy data
21/01/15 12:13:47,518 Finder[325]: sandbox extension creation failed: file system representation creation error for path: [/Users/user/Downloads/Reactions/P ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́A ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́I ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́N ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́.jpg]
21/01/15 12:13:47,518 Finder[325]: __CFPasteboardCreateSandboxExtensionDataFromCFData : failed to obtain sandbox extension data for url [file:///Users/user/Downloads/Reactions/P%20%CD%8E%CC%AE%CD%89%CD%8D%CD%A8%CC%88%CC%81%CC%BE%CC%88%CC%81A%20%CD%8E%CC%AE%CD%89%CD%8D%CD%A8%CC%88%CC%81%CC%BE%CC%88%CC%81I%20%CD%8E%CC%AE%CD%89%CD%8D%CD%A8%CC%88%CC%81%CC%BE%CC%88%CC%81N%20%CD%8E%CC%AE%CD%89%CD%8D%CD%A8%CC%88%CC%81%CC%BE%CC%88%CC%81.jpg]

Moving the whole Reactions folder to the trash and deleting it with the pics is no problem.
The same applies for copying the folder or moving it around.
The Pain.jpg - though really a PITA regarding proper display - doesn't seem to be a virus.

The problems in Finder and sandbox probably occur because of the strange naming of the file: mixed roman and hebrew chars. Hebrew only file names are notated right to left (see second picture). Additionally some filesystem damage may had happened.

My advices are:

like others already mentioned: try to repair your main volume with 'Disk Utility' after rebooting to Recovery Mode
move the file to another folder, wait some time and move it back to its origin until you see the preview image. Check your logs for the sandbox messages (see above).
try to execute find . -inum <inode> -exec rm {} \; after successfully using ls -aBeil to get the inode of 'Pain.jpg'. In my case that would have been: find . -inum 581871 -exec rm {} \;
reboot to Recovery Mode and try to execute the last command (find . -inum <inode> -exec rm {} \;) after repairing the filesystem.
try to execute rm 'P\ ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́A\ ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́I\ ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́N\ ͎̮͉͍ͨ̈́̾̈́.jpg'

Perhaps it is not possible because you file is in an folder that is located in the download folder? Place back the files on your desktop, open the folder 'downloads' and delete what's in that folder. Try to empty your trash can now.


Why doesn't my iPod touch (5th Gen) have FaceTime? I bought my iPod touch (5th Gen) and there is no FaceTime icon on the home screen. I tried checking it in Settings but it's not there. How do I find FaceTime?

You should at least see a FaceTime icon in Settings:

If you don't, FaceTime may not available in your country. According to Wikipedia and Apple these countries don't support FaceTime:

Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Pakistan

If that's not your case, please check this document. It explains what to do to troubleshoot a missing FaceTime app. This is the relevant section:

Note that FaceTime may not be available on devices purchased or used in certain countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In Settings > General > Restrictions, verify FaceTime and Camera are On.
Disabling Camera also disables FaceTime.
Update to the latest version of iOS.
Restore your device:

Back up your device to iCloud or iTunes.
Tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.
Note: This will erase all user data from your device.
When complete, configure your device by selecting your region and language and then restore your data using the iCloud or iTunes backup.
Note: When setting up and restoring a backup from iTunes, ensure that your computer's language, country, and date and time are set correctly.

If you still cannot locate the FaceTime app, try turning it on at Settings > FaceTime.


How to print an image across two pages I have a long image that's about 8 inches wide by 20 inches tall. It's open in Preview. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to get the top half of the image to print on one sheet of letter paper, and the second half to print on the second sheet.

Every time I try, it prints only on one sheet of paper. If I select Scale=100%, it prints a zoomed in part of the middle of the image on one sheet of paper, ignoring the top and bottom of the image. I tried Googling for an answer but the results are bad due to the generic-icity of the words "preview, print, mac, pages" - most of the results I saw were about printing multiple images on one page.

How do I print a PNG across multiple pages?

Here is how to use Safari to print an image to span multiple pages:

1) Open the image to be printed in Safari.  If it is a local file, then choose File -> Open File....  Or if you already have the file open in Preview, you can drag the icon of the file from the title bar of the Preview window onto the Safari window or Safari icon in the dock.  Otherwise, load the image from the Internet however you usually would.

2) Go to File -> Print... and then change the Scale (%) so that the image is the desired size. If you do not see the place to change the Scale, you may need to press the Show Details button. Safari will show you a preview of how the image will appear on each page, so you can see how big the resulting image will be.  For the example, you can get the entire width on a single page, but the image will span 2 pages in length.

You may want to choose borderless printing if your printer supports it.  For instance, for my Canon inkjet, I set the paper size to US Letter (borderless).  However, I was not successful in achieving borderless printing in my one trial; Safari still left white borders around the image that I later had to trim.

3) Click print. Collect your prize from the printer.  Trim away white space and then combine the different pages using tape, etc.

Increase the size of the image to 101% and the printer will give you the option. You will have to do some cutting to paste them together.


OS X 10.9: Deleting Keyboard Input Sources This is really similar to:
How to remove or disable a default keyboard layout?
However, I am new here and have no ability to comment or make remarks towards this to voice further problems.

In OS X 10.9, I need to remove input sources in System Preferences > Language and Region > Keyboard Preferences > Input Source.

To be clear, I want these gone completely; if I were to click the add button then I want there to be nothing but the basic English layout available.

**Edit:
The solution can be as dangerous as editing near-/root-level files in the OS as long as there's a possible solutions

If no possible solution can be found can anyone recommend third-party software or a way to lock system preferences?**

If others got here searching for how to disable all input sources except a custom keyboard layout, you can edit the com.apple.HIToolbox plist:

Change the current input source to your custom keyboard layout.
Open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist (in 10.9) or ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.*.plist (in 10.8 and earlier). You can convert the plist to XML with plutil -convert xml1.
Remove the input source or input sources you want to disable from the AppleEnabledInputSources dictionary. If there is an AppleDefaultAsciiInputSource key, remove it.
Restart.

[edit: Disregard this answer - it addresses custom keyboard layouts which you can remove by deleting them from the "Keyboard Layouts" dir. Op wanted an answer for default Apple languages preinstalled in the system]

The easiest way to remove a custom keyboard layout from "Input Sources -> +" list (when clicking the add button) is to use Keyboard Juggler (see section "Companion Application").

  Keyboard Juggler is a simple app designed to simplify the work flow of
  editing keyboard layouts. It simply gives you a way to move keyboard
  layouts in and out of the folders that macOS uses for enabling the use
  of keyboard layouts, without having to use the Finder or show hidden
  folders. It is intended as a companion application to Ukelele, the
  keyboard layout editor.

So simple yet so effective - 3 clicks and the layouts are gone.


How do I stop Apple from offering me iTunes 11 as a software download in OS X I don't want to disable Apple software update, I just want to prevent myself from accidentally overwriting my iTunes 10 with a working Party Shuffle/iTunes DJ with the new iTunes 11. I have iTunes 11 at work, where it doesn't really matter what I've got installed because I can't play music during the day, and I've tried to come up with some combination of smart playlists that effectively duplicates iTunes DJ... but it doesn't work. The tools aren't there.

So, how do I do it, how do I selectively block updates for iTunes 11?

Edit/Update: All the helpful answers here are no longer useful.

Don't do it. Later versions of OSX ship with a newer iTunes and rolling back to iTunes 10 breaks some aspects of Software Update. I ended up having to reinstall and use Migration Assistant to restore from Time Machine to get a fully working system again.

Update: With Catalina they replaced iTunes with Music which is a whole new ball of problems. This question does not apply to Music.

The methods differ based on whether you are using OS X Mountain Lion, or an earlier edition.

For OS X Mountain Lion (where updates are now merged with the Mac App Store):

Refer to HT2357 How can you ignore a software update in Mountain Lion? – Apple Support Communities. Quoting the accepted solution from DickVH:

  For the software update you would like to hide - make sure the full
  description of the update is shown - click "More..." if needed to show
  the full description

  Right click on the update window.  Select "Hide update"

  This will hide the update and it will not show in the App Store
  Updates Window or counted on the dock icon. [...]

  [emphasis above is mine]

For OS X Lion and earlier:

Refer to OS X: How to ignore a Software Update – Apple Support. Quote:

  How to ignore an update
    [Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.5, Mac OS X 10.6, OS X Lion]

  Choose Software Update from the Apple menu.
  Click Show Details when prompted.
  Click to select the name of the update you wish to ignore.
  Choose Ignore Update… from the Update menu. A confirmation dialog appears that states, "Are you sure you want to
  remove the update (name of update) from the list? You will no longer
  be notified of new versions of this update. To see this update again,
  choose Software Update > Reset Ignored Updates."
  Click OK.

If you're using Lion or earlier, you can just block updates from Software Update.
After Mountain Lion, I don't think you can...

Keep a backup of your iTunes by copying the .app to somewhere safe - that way, you can easily restore to the backup. (Also consider backing up your Music Library and ~/Library/iTunes)


iPhone alarm without vibration? I have using an iPhone 5 upgraded to iOS 7. Is it possible to turn off vibrations for alarms? I am currently using a song as alarm sound, the vibration is annoying.

It doesn't seem so.

A workaround would be to turn off vibrations when on silent (Settings > Sounds), and have it set to silent (either by the button or a Do Not Disturb).

Maybe another app would do the trick.

For jailbroken phones, you can use NoVibratedWakeup.


Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup: Two of the disks to back up have the same name. (Catalina) I have erased my backup hard drive and get the following error when I attempt my first backup:

My disks look like this

I'm running 10.15. Any ideas appreciated.

I had the same issue but this because I truly had 2 "Macintosh HD":

I renamed one of the two and the problem was solved:

Unmount Macintosh HD - Data.  That should fix it.