Is Xcode 7.3 compatible with Homebrew on Sierra? I am a beginner and while attempting to get my Macbook Pro (early 2011, 4 GB RAM) ready for an online class (Python for DNA sequencing data analysis) I apparently did something wrong.  I first downloaded Xcode (v7) from the App store.  I chose version 7 because a friend said version 8 was crashing on him and also I've read that one may have both versions if they are placed in different folders.  I agreed to the Xcode licence then installed Homebrew by running the script from the Homebrew website in Terminal. It installed successfully.  Next I tried to insert the Homebrew directory at the top of path.  I did this by first creating a .bash_profile file, opened the file and inserted: export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH.  This is when everything froze and I could not restart or force quit.  Waited for the power to die then recharged.  The computer is very slow now and Preview will not quit (tried many ways to force quit).  Preview will not allow a restart or shutdown.  Is problem from downloading the wrong version of software, or perhaps from messing with the Path?  Any ideas to solve the immediate issue with Preview and overall software installation guidance would be much appreciated.

For starters, if you were editing the .bash_profile in your user folder it should not be able to cause system-wide issues, the most you would experience is a lack of ability to run software installed by Homebrew if you mistyped the line. To be safe though, I would remove this line from your bash profile if possible. Homebrew auto-links software it installs into the /usr/bin/ and /opt/local/ directories, so you don't have to add anything to the $PATH for ot to work properly.

As far as Xcode goes I am on Sierra and version 8 has worked fine for me, but version 7 was extremely glitchy when I was running El Capitan. Not to mention that version 8 is about half the size of version 7, so I would recommend uninstalling version 7 and replacing it with version 8.

With Homebrew in particular there is the issue that it requires both the Xcode app, and the Xcode command line tools (a quick search will reveal how to install them from the Terminal) so if you don't have both it could cause issues.

Finally do you have System Integrity Protection disabled? Some features of Xcode require root to run, and the Xcode app is allowed to make changes to the system, even if SIP is enabled. Homebrew on the other hand requires root permission to install properly but will be denied access to modify the core system if SIP is enabled, so its possible that Homebrew made some system modifications through Xcode, some modifications to the non-SIP-protected root folders, and was denied access to modify the SIP-protected root folders, resulting in a half modified, partially linked and generally unstable system. You can check if SIP is enabled (if you don't know) by running the command csrutil in the terminal. If it is enabled, and you have a recent time machine backup, I would recommend rebooting to your recovery partition, restoring your system with the backup, opening a terminal while in the recovery, running csrutil disable, and rebooting to macOS. From there install the Xcode command line tools if you don't have them, and try the process again with Xcode 8 instead. While this isn't for sure the issue, SIP can cause problems when used with software that modifies the system, and seeing as how you have enough IT know-how to be installing Xcode and a command line package manager in the first place I recommend disabling it to be safe as a rule.


Is it possible to encrypt a hard drive that is dual booting ubuntu using rEFInd? I recently installed ubuntu on my macbook pro. I am using rEFInd to dual boot ubuntu. Following the installation, I tried to encrypt my Macintosh HD partition by first converting the disk to core storage. I received the following error message:

Error: -69730: Unable to create boot loader partition due to the specifics of your partition map layout

I was using FileVault for whole disk encryption before partitioning my hard drive in order to install Ubuntu. Is there any way to correct this error, or another method to encrypt my hard drive?

I am dual booting Ubuntu 16.04 on my 13 inch Macbook Pro from mid 2014 running El Capitan. This is what my partition lay-out looks like:


Flash Player 11.8 install fails with error code 30 listed in console I am installing the most recent Flash Player 11 for Firefox/Safari, and after running the .pkg from Finder the installation always fails at 50%. I find this error in the console at the end of installation:

8/11/13 12:46:07.911 PM [0x0-0xf30f3].com.solidstatenetworks.awkhost: 2013-08-11
12:46:07.910 Adobe Flash Player Install Manager[1628:707]
Install failed with error code: 30.

This has happened for the past few minor releases, not just current (11.8.800.94). How can I complete the installation? I am running Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

I completed the installation by running the installer as root from the shell, under its mountpoint at /Volumes. The full path to the installer executable's directory is /Volumes/Adobe Flash Player Installer/Install Adobe Flash Player.app/Contents/MacOS

This thread in Adobe forums describes the underlying problem - the current user can't write to a directory the installer needs. Instead of chmod'ing the folder, I already had root enabled, and went from there successfully.

Update: Commentor is right, root is too risky. Follow the chmod route.

Use the sudo command then copy and paste where the executable file is at. It worked for me with the latest version. I think the problem is caused by rootless.


Does "Reset Network Settings" affect all devices? If I reset my Network Settings in iOS/iPadOS, and so lose all my WiFi networks/passwords, will my other iOS devices also lose them?

The reason I ask is that WiFi networks appear to be stored in the cloud (when one is entered into my iPhone, my iPad also seems to learn it). So if I erase my iPhone... will the ones in the cloud be forgotten? Or will my iPhone pull them back from the cloud?

What, precisely, does "reset network settings" do on an iPhone?

  resetting network settings will remove all saved WiFi passwords in iCloud keychain, effectively deleting remembered WiFi networks from all your signed in devices. A workaround: turn off iCloud Keychain, then reset network settings, then turn iCloud Keychain back on. Your saved WiFi networks will then sync back, unharmed.

This is the behavior in devices running iOS 9 and later.

No, reseting the Network settings only deletes all the network settings on that particular device.

Your different apple devices have your same Apple ID and your iCloud Keychain is synced on all those devices. So keychain syncs the passwords between all those devices.


Edit URL in address bar when title matches in Safari In Safari 6.1, under Mac OS 10.8, if I type a text in the address bar that matches the title of a page I have previously visited, that page is listed below. I select it and would then like to slightly edit the related URL. Instead, it only lets me editing the page title, and when pressing enter it performs a web search with the edited title. How can I change this behaviour?

This still applies in Safari 10.0 under macOS 10.11.6.  Pressing the right arrow key after the page title matches only takes you to the end of the page title.  The URL is displayed to the right of the cursor, but does not appear to be editable.

Here is a screenshot of a matched page title, before pressing the right arrow key:

Here is after pressing the right arrow key.  Note that further presses of the right arrow key do not affect anything.

The answer might simply be: You can't.

Whether or no this is desirable could be debated, but having worked on a couple of these things in Mozilla/Firefox days, I think it is clear that someone (aka Apple) would create a browser location opener-thingie to do it this way.

Here's why I think this is Safari expected behavior:

The match you are looking is a match to a Bookmarks and History via the Title. The URL is being provided for your convenience (or if you come from a certain period of browser design and/or security orientation, its to mitigate more obvious versions of URL spoofing). It isn't trying to present TITLE PLUS URL... because if it were a mult-mode search /bookmarks+history / location interface, that would not make any sense. (You could argue it could support this, but that's yet-another input syntax, and a whole other round of feature development...)

The URL is not mean to be editable text in this context.

I do think there is a bug which could be either:

The auto-completion shouldn't be implied with a normal selection color, because you can't trigger completion to make the editable text appear in the location field. (Nor does cut and paste operate correctly on this string).

This may only apply to recent OS X & Safari; I can't test back to 10.8
This is using Safari 10.0.2 on El Capitan 10.11.6

Currently, you can do it by hitting the right arrow, which will take you to the end of the auto-filled line, from where you can edit as you wish

examples...

I type map

Right arrow

Then delete a few letters with backspace & type my new alternative


How do I determine when my Macbook pro was manufactured? I have an early 2011 17" Macbook Pro which is giving me issues related to SATA 6.0gbps; these issues were apparently consistent with the first machines off the line but some of the later machines have been better. I bought my first in March but fed up with the issue I went this week and bought another - alas - same issue.

How can I determine the manufacturing date of the machine?

I'm always hesitant to recommend an app to do what a terminal command could do... but I cannot for the life of me find the terminal command to output the date of manufacture of any given Mac.

So...

I recommend the free app coconutBattery for this task.  It's a battery health monitor, and it happens to also show the date of manufacture of the Mac that it's running on.

Installation

brew cask install coconutbattery (if you use Homebrew) or download from the developer's site.

Get the serial number from About This Mac menu item and check it here . It will give complete information about warranty and manufacturing date.


How can I fix intermittently not being able to switch between the same application windows via shortcuts? Command + ` intermittently stops working sometimes. There's no obvious pattern I have noticed it in both finder and in chrome. The windows are not minimised because I can move the current one and clearly see the one behind it. After a while it goes back.

It happens about 1-2 times a day. Any ideas?

Quoting form Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for developers:

  Users can view all of an app’s open windows by activating App Exposé. In App Exposé view, users can choose one of the open windows on the current desktop or scroll to find an open window on a different desktop. Users can also cycle forward or backward through an app’s open windows on the current desktop by using Command-Backquote and Command-Shift-Backquote. If full keyboard access is on, they can cycle through all windows by using Control-F4 and Shift-Control-F4.

As it relates to your question, it is important to point out that the above quote from the HIG talks about cycling through "open windows on the current desktop". I presume that excludes windows that have been minimized to the dock. That may explain some of the inconsistencies that you see.

The takeaway here is that while the OS may try to standardize certain keyboard shortcuts, this only work if each app developer  implements their app using standard AppKit controls. The less standard the controls look (like Chrome), it is likely that the standard keyboard shortcuts will not function as you expect.

As a side note, even within apps that do use AppKit, they may implement certain shortchuts like tab-switching in a different way. Hope this helps.


Is it possible to turn off the iPhone Calendar invitations badge/list? Is it possible to turn off the new invite badge and the list of new invitations within the Calendar application on the iPhone?

My boss has his assistant review his invitations and accept/deny them for him, so he has no need to do this from his phone.  He therefore doesn't want to see the red badge on the Calendar app icon on the home screen, or the red badge in the bottom right hand corner of the screen within the Calendar application that says he has six new invitations, and he doesn't want to see the list of new invitations upon clicking that button.

I've recreated this on my iPhone and have screenshots available as an example (however because I'm a first time poster it won't allow me to post them).  Any help someone could provide would be appreciated.

Actually, this functionality has been moved into the Notification settings for Calendar items (Settings > Notifications > Calendar).

In that view you'll have the option to change notifications for: Upcoming Events; Invitations; Invitee Responses; and Shared Calendar Changes. Each one give the ability to select: whether its shown in notification center; notification sound; badge app icon; show on lock screen; and the alert style!

I've had this same issue and unfortunately there is no way to turn off the invitation count one sees on the bottom right of the calendar app. I've shut off all notifications (badges, banners, etc) for calendar and these still show up, at least until the invite is attended to in the email inbox. So if one's admin is completing invites, the counter should in theory update in the calendar app in the bottom right corner.

My situation is a bit unique in that my personal account is part of a family domain hosted on outlook.com (no longer offered for new signups at Microsoft) and I receive counters for invites to other "shared" calendars that aren't even mine (belong to spouse, child, etc). I think these calendars are being seen by the device as "other" calendars of mine, when in fact they are not mine. If I click "accept" it just reappears right back in that list of notifications in calendar. I've determined that because I don't have edit rights to those other family members' calendars, the server just rejects my "acceptances" and resends the invite. Endless cycle. Very annoying. Invitations to calendars shared with me should not result in those other individuals' calendar invites coming to me.


"Not enough space" on partitioning? I have a 320GB harddrive with 95GB free.  I boot to a 10.5 disk, open disk utility, and add a 40GB partition.  Halfway through the progress bar, though, it tells me that there's not enough space.  I'm not sure what it means- I'm just splitting my free space off to another partition- it shouldn't need any extra space.

Any ideas as to how I can partition my drive?

Clarification: this is my laptop's internal drive- the one I boot from.  I can't boot normally and partition with /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app.

Ok, solution found on an old superuser question, posting here for posterity.

I just needed to defrag the thing

I got Coriolis iDefrag.  I ran that on the compact setting (required restarting into it's own special mode, but no disk burning was needed).  A few hours later I tried to resize the partition and it worked fine.

Wipe free space, and then try repartitioning. I'm sure that's all the defrag did that mattered.


Import new photos from iPhone into Windows XP I'm on Windows XP and wish to plug in my iPhone and have all new photos imported into a folder on the hard disk. New photos I'm simply defining as those that it hasn't imported before.

Simple, eh?

The default Microsoft Image Aquisition tool seems to read all photos rather than just new ones.

Any ideas out there?

If I could see the iPhone photos as a drive letter I would write my own little application in Java, but this doesn't appear possible.

Edit: Found this similar question: here

You can use dropbox to do this. Although dropbox is mainly a tool to administer files in the cloud, it recently obtained the option to automatically read and store in the cloud new photos from an attached camera/sd card/iPhone when it is connected to the PC. The data is stored in a special directory on your hard disk which is mirrored in the cloud.  When deciding to store photos in dropbox's cloud you get some GB (6?) of storage for free. Dropbox itself is free and you get the benefit of the cloud.

Use phone disk. It mounts your iPhone or iPod .... and can you give example of your applet code....
Thanks
Raji


Why do I need to "bypass" 169.254/16? In my MacBook's networking proxy settings I have "169.254/16" among the list of domains for which to bypass proxy settings:

What purpose does this serve and why do I need it? Can I get rid of it?

It's on the exclude list because a 169.254/16 address is by definition not external to your network. A proxy server relays your requests to other networks. Proxy servers are much less common today than they used to be, but if you are using one, and you didn't have that exclusion, you could get some very strange results.

If you have the proxy enabled without exclusions, you run the risk of the proxy intercepting a request intended for a device on your network, and trying to relay it to the outside world. The possibility exists that the traffic would never reach its intended target on the local network. So the exclusion is telling the OS not to send traffic that should stay local to a proxy meant for external traffic.

I don't know of any reason why it would compromise your own computer's security either way. You can get rid of it, but I don't any advantage of doing so.

I updated my Mac laptop pc to the latest operating system version - MacOS Mojave, and removed *Local, 169.254/16, and the problem solved.


After installing wine with a .pkg, I get the error wine: command not found when running from the terminal but the app works fine I have installed wine through a .pkg from here. Wine Stable.app works fine, but when I run any wine-related command from the terminal, I get command not found.

The wine related commands are not in the path so you have to add them:

(this is for if you installed it for all users, if it's for only your user put ~/Applications instead of /Applications)

sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wine /usr/local/bin/wine
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winecfg /usr/local/bin/winecfg
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/msiexec /usr/local/bin/msiexec

If you installed 64-bit wine also: sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wine64 /usr/local/bin/wine64

Optional:

sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/notepad /usr/local/bin/notepad
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/regedit /usr/local/bin/regedit
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/regsvr32 /usr/local/bin/regsvr32
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wineboot /usr/local/bin/wineboot
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wineconsole /usr/local/bin/wineconsole
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winedbg /usr/local/bin/winedbg
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winefile /usr/local/bin/winefile
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winepath /usr/local/bin/winepath
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wineserver /usr/local/bin/wineserver
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/start/bin/appdb /usr/local/bin/appdb
sudo ln -s /Applications/Wine\ Stable.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/winehelp /usr/local/bin/winehelp

As of being stupid, I found an answer.

brew install wine

It's t h a t simple.

Before typing the command above,

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

I might delete the comment above.


Is there a ‘FileHippo.com Update Checker’ equivalent for the Mac? I used to love FileHippo.com for keeping a lot of my well-loved tools on Windows up to date with its tool that you could check to scan your current program versions (both freeware and paid - in the case of paid it still works to download the latest installer as your license is still located in the system - I assume it would work for Mac too), and a simple repository on the site to directly download the new updater installer files from once the results screen online shows you what you can download and update.

Common apps monitored by FileHippo would be VLC, uTorrent, Firefox, Chrome (all the way up to dev channel), CCleaner, Adobe Reader, Adobe Air, DivX, Safari, Skype, Thunderbird - and all these apps I now have on the Mac too.

Is there anything like this for the OS X world?

MacUpdate.com looks great, but it doesn't seem to officially offer an equivalent 'update checker' app from looking at its website.

And as for Apple's Mac App Store solution, that doesn't cover the apps I listed above so could not be considered an adequate solution, unless all those players unanimously participated in that ecosystem which I don't think is the case.

Coincidentally, FileHippo isn't necessary for the vast majority of those apps you listed. Tons of Mac OS X apps use a framework called Sparkle for self updating.

Don't download Sparkle, it won't do you any good. It's a developer tool intended to be added as part of the application's code. The point is that Sparkle (or some other self-updater) is already part of the application.

VLC self-updates via Sparkle
I'm fairly certain uTorrent does (I'm a Transmission guy, personally, which also self-updates via Sparkle)
Firefox/Thunderbird each have their own self-updaters possibly written by Mozilla
Adobe has their own software updater framework
Skype self updates though I don't remember the process
and Safari updates come from Software Update/Mac App Store.

I don't personally know about CCleaner, DivX.

These apps "phone home" when you open them in order to determine if there is an update or not. If there is, you get a nice little dialog prompting you whether you want to update or not, and there is usually also a changelog to inform you of what's changed.

If you let it take it's course, the process begins:

And then you're done.

Yes, this is only one app at a time, but it only happens when you use it, which really is preferable IMO. Things that update versions automatically out from under you can really throw you off. At least with this process you know when it's happened.

Since the advent of The App Store, sites like osx.iusethis.com and apps like AppFresh have gone the way of the Dodo (although much of iusethis is still available according to a cursory googling: iusethis.luo.ma)

Steer clear of MacUpdate Desktop (sound reasoning).

App Checkers™ are and always will be dubious. Especially on the Apple platforms for reasons stated by Jason (namely Sparkle Framework popularity and the officiation of an App Store).

But so far, as stated by Saeed, the Mac Informer desktop app seems to serve the same utility its' predecessors and the Filehippo checker.


Can iPhones with ActiveSync use Exchange shared mailboxes? I have a team that all have privileges configured in Exchange to give them read/write access to the Inbox, and send-as privileges, for a shared mailbox.  This works great on Outlook, where they can log in with their credentials and just pick "Open these additional mailboxes" in Outlook's account settings.

There doesn't seem to be anything precisely parallel to this in the iPhone, and the Googling I've done suggests that the easy way won't work on the iPhone.

But where things get really odd is that I don't seem to be able to add another Exchange mailbox on the iPhone with the shared mailbox's username and password.  Every time I try to authenticate, I get a password error, despite validating the server settings and the password repeatedly.

How can I get this team the ability to receive, move/delete, and respond to emails for this shared Exchange account from their iPhones?

As of August 2013, Exchange ActiveSync doesn't support shared Exchange accounts.  This isn't an iPhone issue, but rather with the ActiveSync protocol.

One option would be to use Outlook Web Access to access the shared Exchange account.  This would allow the team to do everything that you've outlined here.

Another option would be to set the individual Exchange accounts for the team to automatically copy mails from the shared account into a folder on the individual's Exchange account.  However, I don't think that this will meet your needs, especially moving/deleting and responding to mails from the shared account.  I mention it for the sake of completeness.

Alternatively, going against recommended security practices, ensure the organizational mailbox account is enabled, then allow the login credentials to be shared and connect to it as if it were a normal user's email account.
Of course, for accountability and non-repudiation, this is not a viable option in the corporate or government offices.  Consequently, I just say Microsoft get with the program and enable support for organizational accounts with ActivSync so customers can have a true enterprise level solution.
Other options such as using OWA are beyond rational thinking; perhaps Microsoft has never tried accessing an OWA account from smart phone to see how unrealistic it is.  And thoughts of using mail forwarding options only increases administrative burdens to unreasonable levels as well.


Difference between saving and exporting I have read several questions (here and elsewhere) that look for applications that can save in a format instead of export in a format.  What is the difference between saving in a format, and exporting in a format?  Is it just that there is an additional dialog box, or does an exported file in some way behave differently?  Is this a style over substance issue?

I have no problem with people wanting things the WAY they want them, I just want to understand if there is a fundamental difference in the function of an exported over the function of a saved file.

Examples:  Pages exports in formats that Open Office saves in.  Pixelmator exports in formats that PhotoShop saves in (so I've been told).

AS @lhf comments export/import implies that there is some information lost during one of the processes so that you can't export and then import and get exactly the same document back.

Save usually writes the file in the format that is native to the application or in the same format as the file was opened in.

Some applications e.g. Microsoft Office will not use export as much as this but use save as to allow conversion of the format of the document and possibly lose some information e.g. Excel can save as .csv. (I don't have MS Office here and can't remember if they have an export on the file menu). The do have an import that adds the selected document to the current one so another meaning.

The examples you give are both that the file file format is native to an application ( Open Office and PhotoShop) and the other applications' export converts their own format to these on export.

Saving means to keep a file record by saving the documents with a file name in a given particular file extension whereas exporting file somewhat refers to transportation of a file from a location to some another location like from your pc to some other pc.


Issue with Automator and bash script I'm making an automator service, and the first part takes files and RARs them using a bash script
So in Automator, I have a Get Specified Finder Items action to test the workflow, and then the bash script
F=''
for i in "$@"; do
    F="$F \"${i//\"/\\\"}\""
done

/usr/local/bin/rar a ~/archive.rar $F

so it just takes the file paths, puts quotes around them, and then runs the RAR command with all the files as arguments. When I run this, automator gives me the error

Cannot open  "/Users/user/test.txt" No such file or directory
Cannot create ~/archive.rar No such file or directory

No clue why it's getting those errors. When I add an echo to the last command
echo /usr/local/bin/rar a ~/archive.rar $F

The results are the exactly the command I need. I can copy and paste it in terminal and it works.
Does automator run bash scripts differently then they would run in terminal?

bash does expansion of $@ different than all other environment variables to preserve white space etc in arguments. From bash(1):

@ Expands  to  the  positional  parameters,  starting from one.  When the expansion occurs
  within double quotes, each parameter expands to a  separate  word.   That  is,  "$@"  is
  equivalent  to  "$1"  "$2" ...  If the double-quoted expansion occurs within a word, the
  expansion of the first parameter is joined with the beginning part of the original word,
  and  the  expansion  of  the last parameter is joined with the last part of the original
  word.  When there are no positional parameters, "$@" and $@  expand  to  nothing  (i.e.,
  they are removed).

So you basically should be able to call rar within the Shell Script action without any parsing:

/usr/local/bin/rar a ~/archive.rar "$@"

Weird auto-quoting going behind the scenes that I couldn't figure out. So I just did this work-around to get it to do what I wanted, although not exactly a solution:

echo /usr/local/bin/rar a ~/archive.rar $F | bash


Problems opening links on internet iphone 5S When I search something on google and try to click on the returned items/links nothing happens. Please help, do I have to do something in my settings???

The bug affects not only links in Safari and Mail but also in Messages. I depend on the latter for employment, and it's a race with others when notifications come through, so copy & paste is waaay too slow. Not happy!! >:-(
I'm using iOS 9.2.1

It's an iOS bug... My 5S is also affected


Can I restore an iPhone 5S Backup with 7.0.4 on to my iOS 8.3 iPod Touch 5G? My iPod touch got stuck in a screen and it says to connect to iTunes, and the only backup I have is an iPhone 5S 7.0.4 backup. I don't want to break anything. Will it work?

Yes, this works fine. Device backups are interchangeable between device models, including iPad ⇔ iPhone.

If you want to make a backup from your iPod to your iPhone you will have problems, because the Apple's script is not accepting iOS minor than 8 right now (That's called downgrade). But if want to make an "Upgrade" so you have no problem with that, and it will work even with different devices.


Icons disappearing from menu bar I have the problem that occasionally on startup, icons are missing from the menu bar. This includes e.g. Clock, User name, Wi-Fi, Menu Meters and Notification Center.
It does not apply to e.g. Little Snitch, lastfm, Spotlight and Watts.
So it is not an issue of OS X versus other apps.

It looks like this:

This phenomenon appeared with Yosemite.

Although I do not know the problem, there are several solutions.

Reboot or Log out.
Kill the SystemUIServer process, either via Activity Monitor or via killall SystemUIServer. The UI server will restart and the problem will be gone. I've seen it happen that I needed to kill it twice to fully take effect.

If you write killall SystemUIServer in terminal it will fix it!


How do I turn off automatic downloads and updates? I don't see any options for deactivating automatic downloads for OS X and individual apps in the App Store app.

You can't disable automatic updates for individual apps.

The only options are to have automatic updates, or to not have automatic updates. It is not possible for granular control currently. You can provide feedback to Apple here:

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

System Preferences → App Store → uncheck options


HDMI VGA projector cannot connect to Macbook Pro Why doesn't the projector find the Macbook Pro when connecting a VGA cable to the HDMI port on Macbook Pro via an adapter? It does work on a Windows machine. I know that to fix this problem one needs to connect the VGA to the Mini Display port (via an adapter of course). So is there another way around this? Or do we have to connect to the Mini Display port.

After a few months of experimentation, we found no 3rd party (i.e., non-Apple branded) HDMI <> VGA adaptors which worked well and some which didn't work at all on our Macs. We bit the financial bullet and purchased Apple-branded adaptors and they work perfectly.

We found the same with Thunderbolt & USB <> gig-Ethernet adaptors and Lightning <> HDMI adaptors, too. Remember, you may save $$ purchasing 3rd-party adaptors, but there are tradeoffs in either operation or quality, frequently both.

Most 3rd party adaptors have little or no strain or twist relief in the cable attachment inside the adaptor. We had slews of non-Apple Thunderbolt <> VGA adaptors die after only a week or two of use because the cables literally twisted out of the adaptor body.


Can upgrade to Mavericks harm Bootcamp NTFS data partition? I consider to upgrade from Mountain Lion to Mavericks. I have two Bootcamp Windows 7 partitions, one for boot & system, another for documents and data. Both Windows partitions are NTFS. OS X recovery partition was manually removed prior to installing Bootcamp/Windows.

Any risk that upgrade will break either of my Windows partitions? How to minimize the risk? It definitely happened last time I upgraded from Snow Leopard (or Lion?) to Mountain Lion.

One post suggests that it happens with any OS X upgrade, though I'm not sure it applies to my situation.

Update: Tried running upgrade, got this message: "Install Failed: OS X could not be installed on your computer. OS X can't be installed on the disk because a recovery system can't be created. Visit www.apple.com/support/no-recovery to learn more" which links to another support article (which is surprisingly for Lion) suggesting to manually shrink the OS X partition which will allow space for creating recovery partition. The question is still the same: will it hurt either of my Windows NTFS partitions?

This is how my partitions look on OS X side:

Usually OS X backups don't mess with the partitions, except for when they create a recovery partition. And since your recover partition has been (manually?) removed, OS X will probably try to add it again.

If you do the upgrade, definitively back up all your stuff (on the windows side as well!).

If you want to play it really safe:
1 - get an external (usb) drive
2 - copy your mac-partition to that drive (via disk utility or any other cloning software)
3 - boot from the external (usb) drive and run the update there
4 - clone the partition back form the external onto your internal drive

I upgraded from 10.8 to 10.9 OSX with an XP BootCamp partition and everything worked fine. Both booting as a PC, and with Parallels desktop.


How can I use Terminal to copy all files of a certain type from a failing hard drive? I need to use terminal to copy my Pictures folder from a failing harddrive onto another drive, but I can't actually change into the folder and use just cp *.jpg ~/Documents. Is there a way to do this without having to navigate into the source directory?

Doesn't need to be copy obviously, just whatever that can get my files out of the drive.

Edit:
Found a way around my current problem, so I figured I'd add it. (The answers below did work on other folders, just not on the one I was having problems with. I guess nothing can handle the nightmare that is iPhoto.)

I couldn't see the subfolders of my /Pictures/ directory (and couldn't change the permissions on the folder since the disk is broken).
But, using terminal, and

sudo find /Volumes/Olddisk/Users/me/Pictures/ -type d

I got it to print the subfolders (and could probably use the trick in the answers on the individual folders, I guess) so within the mess of iPhoto I found my pictures at

/Volumes/Olddisk/Users/me/Pictures//iPhoto Library/Masters/2010

and just resorted to grabbing each year with

sudo cp -rpv "/Volumes/Olddisk/Users/me/Pictures//iPhoto Library/Masters/2006" ./

I use rsync to do this sort of copy

for example

rsync -aE source_dir/*.jpg target_dir

The option E copies the ACLs and a does the unix permissions and times ad recurses down the directoty tree

rsync can also be setup to copy to remote machines without mounting drives.

There are some GUI front ends for rsync e.g. aRsync.

Note Applke supplies an old version newr versions can be got from packae managers and see the current rsync man page Note the command line -aE seems to be -AX now.


How do I reset iPhone if hard reset (power + home) won't work I have an iPhone that is frozen while browsing with Safari (it happens all the time). I am aware that holding down the power button with the home button for 10 seconds is supposed to reset the phone. It does not. I have held down for 60 sec or longer at least 10 times, to no avail.

What other options exist to force the phone to reboot, other than waiting for the power to exhaust itself completely after several hours?

I finally got it restarted.

I pressed the home button first, for about 3 seconds by itself, then I came in afterward with a press of the power button, and it restarted within 15 seconds.

let it die and then recharge it it will basically do a hard reset.


MacOS Big Sur - how do I disable/ skip verify on opening dmg I have 2015 MBA running Catalina that at some stage in the past I managed to configure that when opening my own created dmg files (used for business data storage with encryption security) it no longer goes thru the verify process when opening - just straight to asking for the password.
So I have bought a new MBA and installed Big Sur with clean install. Now I get the verify process each time I try to open my dmg files. Tried sudo defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify TRUE but it does not work. (In fact on my 2015 MBA, this flag is not set anyway).
It is extremely time consuming to have to go thru the verify process every time I want to open (several) of my data dmg files.
In response to a comment, I have set up a service as a work around that executes an automator service using shell script:
hdiutil attach -noverify "$@"
However, I find that I need to run the service twice in order to have the dmg file appear in finder - am I doing something wrong?
Finally - are there any other alternate solutions - given diskimagemounter does NOT verify dmgs when opening in my MBA running Catalina.

sudo spctl --master-disable
Above is the line that disables gatekeeper in Terminal.
This is not a practice recommended by security experts or Apple, yet it totally disables any dmg verification.
I use third party firewalls and security tools while keeping gatekeeper off.

Soooo - I was just checking out the new Onyx utility to try and change the boot login screen for BigSur (where does Apple come up with these crappy images and then not let you change it - act like childish parents really!!!) and saw in the list of things that one can do, is 'turn off gatekeeper'.
So on the off chance this had an effect on verify always occurring on my dmgs, I turned off gatekeeper.
Voila - no more verify on my opening of dmgs - go straight to asking for password.
Now I know some folk think you should not turn off gatekeeper - but I've lived without such protection for decades and have not had a problem - and it is my computer, so I don't need mummy and daddy Apple treating me as if I'm still in diapers!
So there you go - get rid of the dmg verify by turning off gatekeeper (and Gatekeeper was turned off on my MBA 2015, so thats why verify didn't occur on it)
You can search for the terminal command to turn gatekeeper off if you don't want to use Onyx.
Finally I can breath now that I am free from Apple's interference.....


How to know what's my iphone 4s carrier using IMEI? I have an iphone 4s ios 6.1.3 my cousin bought it from U.S.A or so he says. He says the carrier is Verizon CDMA. However in the settings I see carrier: virgin 14.0

I am outside the USA so i need a sim unlock, I contacted virgin USA, they said that the IMEI is not registered in the system, i need to contact apple they will unlock it.

I contacted apple USA on the phone, they said they don't unlock phones, they only help with hardware issues, I need to contact virgin to unlock it!

I contacted a local apple store, I asked them how to know whats my carrier? They said virgin 14.0 is nothing, not important, it doesn't mean that my iphone is virgin
I gave them the IMEI and they are trying to see if it can be unlocked.

I have some questions:

How to know what's the carrier using IMEI? My IMEI is 99 000266 076389 5 I tried to use an online IMEI checker, it only says service expired
How to know in which country it was registered? As you know virgin and other carriers are available in many countries, I want to know what support team I should contact.
Since the phone seems to be locked to the carrier, is there a way to know what's the iphone phone number was using IMEI?

Indeed, Apple cannot provide you such information and they do not either unlock iPhones. This can be done only through the Mobile Network in which your iPhone is locked to, and you need to meet some criteria (I think they are different to every carrier). The number one requirement is to have paid all the monthly fees and you are the owner of that iPhone (That was very obvious).
Now, in order to find out the Network that blocks your iPhone, you will have to find an online IMEI Checker, like the one it is mentioned in a previous answer. The free imei checker (unfortunately), are not always accurate (I have checked many times the same imei number, and in some cases [very few] the results were changing). There are some paid IMEI checker services, which are very cheap and in case of false results they will fully refund you. You can check the IMEI Checker I have used, and their results (Until now) are very accurate.
I highly recommend to everyone to make those kind of checks before buying an iPhone from an online store. Unfortunately I learn it the hard way, so always double check what you are going to buy! :S


Is there a macOS utility that lets me assign a keyboard shortcut for switching to a particular window? I usually have a lot of applications open with lots of windows in each. Let's say I'm working on several documents in a word processor, while having several web browser windows open for reference. I need to switch back and forth between my different documents, and a particular web browser window, which is a Wikipedia article.

Currently, to switch to the Wikipedia article, I need to

⌘ Tab a random number of times (depending on how many applications I have open) to Chrome, then
 Cmd ⌘   `  a number of times (depending on how many Chrome windows I have open) to reach the window with the Wikipedia article.

App switchers like Witch, that can be configured to bring up a list of all open windows from all applications, and lets you switch between them, improves the situation slightly. But it still requires me to browse through a list in order to select a window.

My workflow would be much easier if I could assign a keyboard shortcut to that particular Chrome window, to bring it to front.

Ideally, it would work like this:

Activate the window you want to create a shortcut for ("window A")
Bring up the utility app
Assign a keyboard shortcut, say Ctrl Alt ⌘W, to "window A"
From now on, pressing Ctrl Alt ⌘W at any time would bring "window A" to front
When "window A" is closed, the keyboard shortcut is removed

Is there any utility application for macOS that provides this functionality?

Keyboard Maestro
Keyboard Maestro is a paid-for application that allows the creation of hotkeys (amongst many other types of trigger) and has a builtin function to target tabs within Safari or Google Chrome.
It references tabs by index number, e.g. tab 1 being the first tab, tab 2 being the second, and so on.
Here's a macro that took 2 minutes to create and assigns a group of ten hotkeys CmdAlt+0...9, each of which trigger their respective tab in Google Chrome, if the tab exists, and brings it to the foreground (0 represents tab 10 in this instance).

If you needed to be able to reference tabs by their title rather than a fixed index number (in case you changed the order of the tabs), you'd have to use a bit of AppleScript to achieve a similar result.
This piece of AppleScript is of particular value:
    tell application "Google Chrome" to tell its front window to ¬
        if exists (first tab whose title contains "IMDB") then ¬
            repeat until active tab's title contains "IMDB"
                set active tab index to ¬
                    (active tab index mod (number of tabs)) + 1
            end repeat

Alfred
An identical result can be achieved with Alfred, in a slightly different construction of its workflow to that of the macro used in Keyboard Maestro.  Alfred doesn't have a builtin command to switch to a specific browser tab, so a little bit of AppleScript has to fill that gap.
Here's the basic workflow layout:

On the left, I created just four hotkey triggers, but you can create as many as you wish.  I mirrored the CmdAlt+1,2, ... format I used in Keyboard Maestro for a direct comparison.
The superimposed orange-dashed window shows the settings for the second hotkey, specifically in supplying it a numerical parameter—2 in its case—that gets passed as an argument into the subsequent AppleScript.  Each hotkey has a similar numerical parameter it will deliver to that one script upon triggering.
Here's the AppleScript that performs the action triggered by these hotkeys:
    on run argv

        set n to argv as number

        tell application "Google Chrome" to ¬
            tell its front window to ¬
                set the active tab index to n

        activate application "Google Chrome"

    end run

It would be easy enough to add a few lines to include Safari as an option too, depending which browser was active last when the hotkey is triggered.
Alfred and Keyboard Maestro play quite well together, too, as each has the ability to trigger workflows/macros from external sources, including from each other.  So, an Alfred trigger can initiate a KM macro, and, likewise, a KM trigger can initiate an Alfred workflow.

Have you considered giving a try to Mosaic ? it could be a step towards speeding up your workflow.


How can I restore an iCloud backup to a new device? I have a new iPad And am trying to restore it from the back up of my old iPad. iCloud storage shows 3 backups - my iPhone, my old iPad and the new iPad (empty).

How do I get the old iPad backup on to my new iPad?

I found the solution myself in the meantime.

Seems new ipad was using an older iOS than the old one was when i backed it up, which is why it couldn't find the iCloud backup and forced me to set it up as a new ipad and use iTunes. It is all better now!

HI go to recycle bin and click yourself.


iCal: How to display full event title? I am new to Mac, Mac OS X and iCal.

In the monthly view of iCal, I found it very inconvenient to read only the first 10-12 characters of an event's title. To read the full length title, I have to do one of the following:

go to full screen
reduce font size to "unreadable"
open the event edit dialog
go to the daily view

None of the above options satisfies me.

Is there a way to have iCal display additional info (full title, comments...) when mouse stay over an event for one second or so?

Alternatively, is there a way to make a long (> 10 chars) title wrap to a new line rather than being cut with ...?

There are many threads (on other forums) asking about the title wrapping, but I'm afraid it isn't possible. For reference, I found this, this, and this.

What MACOSX Version are you using? Because in Lion 10.7.4 using iCal on Monthly view, you just need to click the event and it will pop up all event description.


How to transfer large videos from iPad 2 camera roll to Windows XP? iPad 2 16GB WiFi iOS 5.1.1

Windows XP SP3 All updates installed

I have one video on my iPad 2 that is 24:13 in length that I filmed myself and stored in the camera roll. My goal is to upload it to YouTube directly or via my computer.

Here is what I have tried so far:

Click "Send to YouTube" when viewing the video in the Photos App. I get the error that the "Video is Too Long" even though my iOS is up to date, I am on WiFi and YouTube has a 10 hour limit.
Plug the iPad in to the USB drive and drag and drop the video from the iPad to my desktop. The file appears to transfer after a few minutes of copying, however the file is always 0 bytes so it doesn't actually work. Mind you I am doing the drag and drop method, not using the Windows Camera Wizard which has issues with large files.

So what can I do to put this video on YouTube? I have replicated this problem with another iPad 2 and another Windows XP computer and it appears that others have had this problem go unsolved from other discussion boards.

Is it really impossible to get a ~20 minute video from my iPad 2 to YouTube or my own computer without the use of 3rd party software? I thought this thing was supposed to "just work."

There's an iOS app called Photo Transfer App that should do exactly as you want. Transferring from iPad to Windows.

Not sure I know the answer to why YouTube isn't taking it.

There are very few ways to do this, the easiest way to do this is download a free app like Dropbox.

If you do this you will need to set upa Dropbox account (free) and in the uploads sections hit the + and in your camera roll select the video. Once imported to Dropbox, visit http://www.dropbox.com in your browser and download the video.

If you own iMovie for iOS you can create a new project, and add the video. Go back to the main iMovie screen hit export and hit send to itunes. Connect your device to your computer and open up iTunes. In the sidebar click the name of your device and go to the apps section, scroll to the bottom of this page and there should be a list of apps that can share files with your computer. In this list click iMovie, and in the box on the right find (yourprojectname).iMovieMobile. Click this and hit Save To. Once you have saved you can open it up with iMovie for Mac, you can then export it to a normal video file. You should then be able to upload it to YouTube.

P.S. The most probable reason that you can not directly upload from your device is because the file is too large for the devices small processor.


Expand APFS container using free space located before the container within macOS I have an SSD (disk0) that contains my macOS Mojave installation. SIP is enabled (and for reasons outside my control, cannot be disabled) so I cannot give the output for gpt -r show disk0 nor can I unmount disk0.
But going into Windows (installed on a completely separate drive), is one partition located at the end of the drive (my macOS install) with free space preceding it but I was unable to run diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s3 0 because of Error: -69743: The new size must be different than the existing size.
I tried creating an APFS partition and merging the two together, after creating a partition, this is what the diskutil list disk0 output is:
/dev/disk0 (external):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI SYSTEM                  536.9 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk5         110.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         139.5 GB   disk0s3

Running diskutil mergePartitions APFS Macintosh disk0s2 disk0s3 gives me
You cannot merge disks into an APFS Physical Store

Instead, you can delete the partitions following the APFS Physical Store by
using "diskutil eraseVolume free n <disk>" for all such partitions, and
then by growing the corresponding APFS Container by its APFS Physical Store
to fill the gap by using "diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0"

Doing so in the reverse order gives me
The given partitions are not ordered sequentially on disk

The only problem is, they are sequential!
I don't want disk0s2 because that is my free space, I need to preserve disk0s3. GParted's APFS support is limited so I'm hesitant with shifting the APFS drive using that. All resizing guides presume free space is succeeding the partition, what should be done if it is preceding the partition?

I copy the contents of the container to a new disk / volume and then evaluate if it's faster to erase the entire drive or I want to merge / rearrange things.
The short answer is the tools are designed to have one container for the entire storage so you can move date between volumes without running into ordering issues. One container per drive is how I run boot volumes to avoid painting myself into a corner like you have done here.
The long answer is use volumes inside a container so you're working on a synthesized disk as opposed to a physical disk.
/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +499.9 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume macOS - Data            327.0 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 255.2 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                664.6 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume macOS                   15.2 GB    disk1s5
   6:              APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 15.2 GB    disk1s5s1

So, in your case, here is what a machine might look like as you prepare to upgrade to Big Sur where you can maintain a Catalina / Mojave and Big Sur beta Volume alongside the Big Sur shipping version when it's time to upgrade Macintosh HD to Big Sur.
me@dev ~ % diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         250.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Apple_KernelCoreDump                         655.4 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.1 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     71.9 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 81.2 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                525.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      3.2 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume bitbucket               99.7 GB    disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            11.5 GB    disk1s6
   7:                APFS Volume Big Sur                 761.9 KB   disk1s7
   8:                APFS Volume Mojave                  761.9 KB   disk1s8
   9:                APFS Volume Catalina                761.9 KB   disk1s9

Also, now that I said you can't do it - can you shrink the files on disk0s3 so that it fits in disk0s2 / move the data, then delete disk0s3 and grow disk0s2 to consume the now free space at the end of the physical disk?


Switch between sound profiles iPhone? I have found no way that iPhone is able to do what I need here. I have iOS 6.x (jailbroken).

I would like to set 3-4 Sounds themes (basic feature of all Nokia). Example I need:

Normal: vibrance ok, sounds normal
High tone: volume up
Silence: vibrance ok but only with a single low tone to alert of SMS, email etc
Dead: no vibrance, no sounds.

Is there any app or somethign that let me set this 4 profiles?

I have not been able to find a way to do this with either jailbreak tweaks nor with the built in iOS.

(Please note I know I can switch between silence and do not disturb, but I want to personalize this profiles, also I need high tone profile)

SBProfiles will let you set up profiles for lots of settings on your phone - including sound and vibration. Here's a YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlGjZ6UACFs

Intelliborn once had an app called MyProfiles (http://intelliborn.com/myprofiles.html) but it has been discontinued and only works on iOS 4

Yes you can! But now sbsettings does not support IOS 7 yes. But earlier versions there is no problem.


How to transfer Clash of Clans from one iOS device to another I have two iPhones and an iPad 2. One of the phones is an iPhone 3GS running iOS 6.1.6 and the other is an iPhone 4 running iOS 7. Under the same Game Center account they each have a separate village for Clash of Clans. I just got my iPad and wanted to transfer the game on the iOS 6.1.6 device to my iPad. What I was wondering was, if it's even possible to link a game on Clash of Clans from an iOS 6 device to an iOS 7 device, and if so how do I do so?

Yes it is possible. All you need to do is have both your devices next to that you want to make the transfer with. Then tap the settings button in clash of clans and you will see "link a device". Follow the on screen instructions after that.

If you have a new account already made on your new device past town hall 4 you are unable to link them. You will need to contact supercell for further information, which is what I had to do.

The new version will fix the problem is not loaded games


Find logged on user and network home directory with a bash script I am trying to use a script to find the username and home directory of the user that is currently logged on to a Mac. This is what I have, and it works, but is there a better (i.e. simpler) way to do it?

user=`logname`
userHome="eval echo ~`echo $user`"
userHome=`$userHome`

The script will almost definitely not be run by the logged on user.

This is Mac OS X 10.6, joined to an Active Directory, and a network user is logged on. So the username does not appear in /etc/passwd.

This script:

#!/bin/bash
w -h | sort -u -t' ' -k1,1 | while read user etc
do
  homedir=$(dscl . -read /Users/$user NFSHomeDirectory | cut -d' ' -f2)
  echo =$user= =$homedir=
done

will do the following:

find all users logged in (via ssh too!) w -h or can use the who command too
sort and find unique users sort -u -t' ' -k1,1
for each logged user

read username
find his home directory from the DirectoryService daemon via the command  dscl
print out username and his home directory

Not sure if all the other complications are needed.

echo $USER
echo ~


Can't find MIT/GNU Scheme in Applications after install I installed program called "MIT/GNU Scheme" to /Applications. I can run it via Spotlight, but it says it's from unidentified developer. So I should find it in the folder and right click open, but it's not in the folder. Terminal autocomplete cannot find it either. If I install it again, it says it is there and asks whether to replace the old file. Read somewhere it might be 32bit version on my 64bit system, but I specifically installed 64bit version. I am running OS X 10.10.4

You can confirm where it was installed in /Applications by using Terminal.app:

cd /Applications
ls -lt | grep -i cheme

This should print the name of the directory where it was installed (which should be MIT:GNU Scheme). You can access it from the command-line by adding the following directory to your PATH: /Applications/MIT\:GNU\ Scheme.app/Contents/Resources.

Alternatively, you can also visit the Security & Privacy panel in System Preferences right after trying to run the program from Spotlight. The panel should have an option to run (the last tried) program from an unidentified developer.


AirDrop shardingd error Trying to debug AirDrop issues on the mac with an iPad mini 4th gen (both up-to-date).

Basically on the Mac I can see the iPad (most of the time) and I can transfer files, however I can never see the Mac when I try to share a file (usually a picture from Photos).

I have the visibility of both iPad and Mac to Everyone and I think I have narrowed it down to the following error. However, I don't know where to go from here!!

08/04/2016 12:56:11.737 sharingd[269]: tcp_listener_accept Failed to set SO_NOSIGPIPE on new connection from fe80::ac13:bbff:fe88:5c69%awdl0.55701

Also, just as a side note, when both cannot see each other (happens quite often) I often notice that the Bonjour service doesn't seem to want to run. Anyone know how I can kick it into life?!

FYI, I have tried the basics like disable firewall (both OSX and Little snitch)...

TIA!!

This was  problem with LittleSnitch after all. Disable the network filter and it works as expected.


How to customize iOS app icons? Since the release of iOS 14, people have been sharing "aesthetic" iOS Home Screens.
These screenshots often feature fully custom app icons, designed and selected by the user.
How are these people changing and customizing their app icons?

Note that this is different than the app developer providing alternate app icons, which has been possible since iOS 10.3.

You can use the Shortcuts app to set custom icons: https://www.cultofmac.com/723677/customize-iphone-home-screen-icons-ios-14/


Why is it better for an iPhone’s battery to NOT close down apps? I know apparently it’s not a good idea to close apps on your iPhone to save on battery. I’ve read questions and answers like Does force closing apps have any benefit on iOS devices? but it still doesn’t quite gel with me. Sometimes I have found over 50 apps running, so not closing them makes no sense.

Maybe I’m a bit of an old chook and you just can’t teach old dogs new tricks, but can someone here explain WHY it’s better to just keep all these apps running? And when I say “explain” I mean in layman’s terms so I can understand.

You’re not alone. People are just used to their desktop computer habits, and it’s understandable they carry these habits over to their iPhones and iPads.

However, let me try and explain this using an analogy:

Imagine it’s a hot day and you’re outside gardening. You get thirsty, so you go inside to the kitchen, grab a large glass, put some ice in it, and fill it with water. You then drink half of it and empty the rest in the sink before going back outside. Not long later, you get thirsty again, so you go back inside to the kitchen, grab the same glass, put some ice in it, and fill it with water. Again you only drink half of it and empty the rest in the sink!

The above workflow just doesn’t really make sense. Why wouldn’t you take the glass outside with you? And, you’re not only wasting water by emptying it, but you’re spending more time and energy getting that water again.

Likewise, when you quit an app you’re actually using some battery power in the process of doing so (e.g. clearing it from RAM, etc) and then again later when you have to launch it again and load it back into RAM.

So, for a great majority of the time it’s best to leave apps open. Even though they’re open, they’re really just sitting in a type of suspended mode that isn’t using any battery power whatsoever. Yes, the app is still loaded in RAM and taking space, but it’s not actually doing anything - it’s just lying there dormant. And, because it’s not using any battery power in this state, there’s no advantage to quitting it from a battery conservation point of view - especially if it’s an app you know you’re going to be using again and again throughout the day.

There’s also really no advantage to force quitting an app because iOS itself will do this for you if/when it needs to in order to free up RAM. So if you have 50 apps open and they stay open, then iOS hasn’t been pushed to the extent of needing to close any of them to free up memory.

Now, like anything, there are always exceptions to the rule (such as apps that have to perform background tasks). An example of this is one that plays music while you’re doing other things with your phone, or one that’s downloading content in the background, or one that’s counting how many steps you walk in a day, etc. However, iOS has an extremely efficient process for managing background apps/tasks and if you choose to quit these you’re basically saying you don’t trust the operating system to do its job properly.

So, feel free to quit your apps when you have to (e.g. because it’s frozen, etc), but don’t do it to conserve battery power. In fact, if you do, you’ll be achieving the opposite and using more battery power throughout the day!

Summary

You only need to quit apps if they're not working properly (e.g. an app has frozen, it isn't displaying properly, etc).
Apps listed in the App Switcher are not necessarily running - in fact most of them are not running at all.
Most apps in the App Switcher will be in a suspended state - this means they're not: visible on screen, executing code, using the CPU or GPU, or using the battery. However, they are still resident in memory until they are purged (if necessary) by the system to free up memory:

  Suspended - The app is in the background but is not executing code. The system moves apps to this state automatically and does not notify them before doing so. While suspended, an app remains in memory but does not execute any code. When a low-memory condition occurs, the system may purge suspended apps without notice to make more space for the foreground app.

Source: See Table 2-3 within the first reference link at end of this answer.
The only apps actually running on your iPhone at any given point in time are the active app (i.e. the one visible on screen) and any others working in the background. (Note: There are some temporary exceptions to this in the case of apps that still need time to complete executing code they already started while they were active - typically this is only in the order of seconds but could theoretically extend to over a minute.).
In terms of apps running in the background, you can control which apps are permitted to do so (if they're open) by going to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. (Note: Just because you see an app listed here doesn't mean it will run in the background, but disabling it here means it definitely won't!)
If your iPhone is locked, then the app that was active (i.e. it was visible on screen) when you locked your device is now inactive. However, unless you've only just locked your iPhone and it's still finishing executing code or it's running in the background (e.g. playing music, etc) then it's not using the CPU, GPU or battery.

References

For more info about the various states an app can be in, refer to Apple's App Programming Guide for iOS: Execution States for Apps.
For more info about apps running in the background, refer to Apple's App Programming Guide for iOS: Background Execution.

Clean cut version:
It is better because the OS was designed to make it better to the point that the user would want to keep apps on (or in a "suspended" state) in order to gather more information on your actions[*] later if needed.

Longer version:
Apps that are "suspended"  will have their state saved in memory so once you want to start them back up the proces of loading everything back will require less time for the procesor and almost no use of the storage unit...With this you can't know if your apps are doing some other things in the background which in a lot of cases they sit there collecting data on you.

[*] To elaborate on the collecting data on you part... apps that are stored in memory can be either "suspended" or active in the background. You as the owner of the device can't know (if you don't possess the knowledge of and some other apps to actively scan CPU usage) what said app is really doing. From the point of view of security I'd advise to shut any app that you aren't going to use for the next 10 mins off.

P.S. This practice is done on Android devices as well btw ...


Is Private Browsing broken in Safari 5.1.4? From the release notes for Safari 5.1.4:

Allow cookies set during regular browsing to be available after using Private Browsing

What?

Doesn't that mean, to give an example, that if I go to Amazon in Private Browsing mode, Amazon will still know who I am, and all the things that I look at will appear as "recently visited" when I go to Amazon later (even on a completely different computer)?

If so, what good is Private Browsing mode?

Am I missing something here?

Note that secretly buying gifts as a surprise for loved ones is the "official" example often given for why one would want Private Browsing. Of course, If I actually buy them, I will have to tell Amazon about it, and it will enter my profile, but all the browsing before that could be hidden.

There was a bug that prevented cookies set begore going into safe mode from working again after the safe period had ended.

Imagine a truck with four wheel drive and when you were done and switched back to two wheel mode. It would be a problem if the indicators said two wheel but four was still engaged.

This text you quoted indicates the getting out of safe mode was tweaked so more things work again post safe mode.

Yes and no; it's working as designed, which is not the way people typically expect it would work.

Most people think such browser features will make it impossible for users of the same computer to figure out which sites the browser has been used to visit, and make it impossible for sites to know whether or not a particular user has previously visited them.  Researchers find they don't do that.  They're usually good at the former and usually bad at the latter.  This is all Apple promises when Private Browsing is Enabled : "Safari will keep your browsing history private for all tabs in this window. Safari won’t remember the pages you visit, your search history, or your Autofill information"

See also: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2619068?start=0&tstart=0


Can't open Firefox because a copy of Firefox is already open I have multiple users on my MacBook (OS X 10.9.5). One of them has parential restrictions, but is allowed to use Firefox. Now, despite that, she is unable to run Firefox: whenever she tries, an error box pops up with the message

  Close Firefox
  A copy of Firefox is already open. Only one copy of Firefox can be open at a time.

(needless to say that Firefox was not open, neither by her nor by any other user, and that none of the other users has that problem).

It appears this occured after a recent update of Firefox (to version 39.0).

What could be the cause of this?
How can I sort this out?

Here is what I did to fix the issue:

In OS X Terminal, find your currently used Firefox profile directory (something like):

$ cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/
$ ls -l

if you have multiple profiles, list the one with the most recent date

$ cd rAnd0m.default
$ ls -la

remove the hidden parentlock file

$ rm -v .parentlock

try to start Firefox again

(If the problem was not related to the parentlock file, you will see:
rm: .parentlock: No such file or directory)

If you prefer to use the Finder, just make hidden dot-files visible first, so you can check for the existence of .parentlock and delete it.

The only solution I could find so far was to open an unsaved file in some kind of editor and do a "Log Out ".

If you are lucky, the stuck process will disappear from the dock before editor complains about unsaved file so you can click "Cancel", and most of your workspace will stay there.


Mobile Safari - link to MP3 and show album art? I've created a web page that has a link to an MP3 file. When I click the link, the OS plays the MP3 with a full screen image of a generic image:

Is it possible to show album art in this view? I've embedded album art in the MP3 file, but it doesn't show up so I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong with the sound creation tool or if there is something special that needs to be done with how the file is hosted.

Has anyone seen a song that plays from a web page with album artwork?

I'm just guessing here, but have you tried using an AAC-file with either that or Apple's M4A-extension? You could also try use the MP4-extension and see if it thinks the artwork is a frame from a video-file.

This can be done quite easily! You just have to embed the album art into the .mp3, which can be done with itunes and a special script.

Follow this guide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oClIT8f6V7E

Script download: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=embedart


Photos can't be deleted from iPhone There are some photos on my iPhone 6 plus that I want to get rid of but I can't. When I click the photo the trash-can disappears. When I click edit a note pops up saying these photos are not editable.

How can I delete them?

If the photos were put by syncing with iTunes you can't delete them using iPhone.

To delete photos and/or albums that were copied to your iPhone by syncing with your computer are deleted by doing another sync.

Start iTunes on the computer and connect your phone.
Select your phone in iTunes and select the Photos tab.
Then DESELECT the items you no long want on the Phone.
Then click on Apply or sync.

The photos or albums will be removed from your iPhone but they will remain on your computer.

Yup, if they are on the stream then you can delete it on your phone. Doing another sync on iTunes is required.


XQuartz, utf-8 and filenames This is a question in the continuation of this one:
UTF8 filenames and shell utilities:
the nightmare of utf-8 and filenames is….

How to avoid this confusion with most notably the ls command on filnames created in the following way:

$ echo $LANG
en_US.UTF-8
$ mkdir test
$ cd test
$ touch á
$ touch a´
$

The first file is created by typing alt ⌥+E, A, the second one by typing A, alt ⌥+shift ⇧+E

Within an xterm window I get:

$ ls -al
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 hal  admin   136 Nov 11 15:52 .
drwxr-x---  7 hal  admin  4386 Nov 11 14:25 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 hal  admin     0 Nov 11 15:52 a´
-rw-r--r--  1 hal  admin     0 Nov 11 15:48 a´
$

Which is wrong.

Within a Terminal window I get:

$ ls -al
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 hal  admin   136 Nov 11 15:52 .
drwxr-x---  7 hal  admin  4386 Nov 11 14:25 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 hal  admin     0 Nov 11 15:52 a´
-rw-r--r--  1 hal  admin     0 Nov 11 15:48 á
$

Which is right.

The result is the same whichever shell I use: bash or zsh.

What xterm or XQuartz setting will avoid these 2 filenames to falsely look the same?

This problem doesn't exist on Mavericks (MacOS X 10.9).

Okay, finally sorted with the help of this post:

http://lists.apple.com/archives/x11-users/2008/Mar/msg00202.html

In summary, go here:

http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCEnvironment/

Download the preference pane, and add this entry:

Key=LANG Value=en_GB.UTF-8

I had already added this to my .bashrc and my .profile with no result. But I think XQuartz doesn't launch within that environment, so it never sees it until it is too late.

I am having a similar issues (related to R documentation), which boil down to the same thing.

From an XQuartz window, if you right click (or CTRL r-click) to get to the VT fonts menu, then select UTF8-fonts and UTF8-encoding, this will probably fix your problem.

However, I have not yet found a way to configure these by default, although I have found this:

$ appres XTerm | grep UTF
*fontMenu*utf8-mode*Label:      UTF-8 Encoding
*fontMenu*utf8-fonts*Label:     UTF-8 Fonts
*fontMenu*utf8-title*Label:     UTF-8 Titles

I took a wild stab in the dark and added this to my .Xdefaults:

xterm*utf8-mode: 1
xterm*utf8-fonts: 1

Unsuprisingly this did not work, since these 2 resources don't exist.
I'm still looking for a way to turn it on by default.


Which animations will work on Keynote export to PowerPoint? I have a Keynote (iWork 9) presentation and need to export it as PowerPoint. When doing it using File : Export : PPT the slides work properly, but most of the animations are broken.

Is there a animations compatibility list for exporting to PowerPoint? I found an old apple support article discussing the import, but nothing about export. Ok, I can assume some animation assignments from that article, but it is also marked as no longer updated.

Does anybody has a source for a full list? Or one based upon experience?

Check this page out: https://blog.udemy.com/keynote-to-powerpoint/ Hope this helps!


Can I use a normal USB-keyboard on an iPad3 with iOS6.0? Is there any way to use a normal USB-keyboard on an iPad3 with iOS6?

I saw a demo on YouTube where a normal USB-keyboard was connected to an iPad using the USB-connector. This iPad had iOS 5 on board.  I later read that this wouldn't function anymore under iOS 6.

I consider buying a connection set, but am reluctant since I want to use it to connect my normal USB keyboard. No use buying it if it won't work.

Absolutely bizarre! I've just tried it with an Apple USB Keyboard on an iPad3 running iOS6 and it gives me an error saying the device draws too much power! So the answer is no! Another bizarre move by Apple.


WDF VIOLATION Blue Screen after Upgrading Mac to Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903) Edition UPDATE: I have tested the Windows 10 November 2019 Update (1909) Edition and so far this problem has not occurred. Also, after installing the Window Support Software, the Apple Software Update application provided a download of a "Boot Camp Update Version 6.1.9".

I did an upgrade on my iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) from a previous version of Windows 10 to the current version. The Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903) Edition ISO file was downloaded from the official Microsoft website. Afterwards, the Mac would get the following "Blue Screen of Death" error message.

The Windows Support Software was downloaded by using the BootCamp Assistant. I confirmed the files are the same as the files that can be downloaded from the Apple website Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621. I installed Windows 10 to legacy BIOS boot.

  Note: The Windows Support Software download by using the Boot Camp Assistant can vary depending on the Mac model.

Below is some information about my configuration.

iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011)
iMac12,1
High Sierra Version 10.13.6
BootCamp Version 5.1 (Build 5621)
Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903) English Edition.
Win10_1903_V1_English_x64.iso

I also tried a clean install of Windows 10 and this made no difference. The error still occurred. How can I avoid getting this error message?

After some investigation, I found the error occurs after installing the Windows Support Software. After some trial and error experiments, I determined the offending file in Windows Support Software is named BootCamp/Drivers/Apple/BootCamp.msi.

Note: I have tested the Windows 10 November 2019 Update (1909) Edition and so far this problem has not occurred. Also, after installing the Window Support Software, the Apple Software Update application provided a download of a "Boot Camp Update Version 6.1.9".

I found a solution which involves using a newer version of the BootCamp.msi file. I did this by downloading the Windows Support Software on a iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013). Since not everyone reading this will have a newer model Mac, I have provided a alternate method for retrieving this file. This method was derived from Chris F Carroll's answer to the question: How to download Bootcamp drivers without Bootcamp assistant? The nice thing about this answer is the Window Support Software is downloaded directly from Apple without the use of any third part tools.

The Windows Support Software for the iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013) can be downloaded by following the steps given below.

Click on this link to download the BootCampESD.pkg file directly from Apple.

  Note: If this link is broken, then post a comment and I will try to update the link.

Double click on the  BootCampESD.pkg file in the Finder application to start the "BootCampESD Installer".
Follow the instructions. This will save the WindowsSupport.dmg file to the /Library/Application Support/BootCamp folder.
Double click on the WindowsSupport.dmg file in the Finder application to mount the disk image. The volume label will be Boot Camp.
Use to Finder application to locate the BootCamp.msi file in the BootCamp/Drivers/Apple folder of the device labeled Boot Camp. This is the Windows installer for Boot Camp Version 6.0 (Build 6136).

Below are two methods for solving the problem. I tried both and decided I preferred Method 2. Here a assume you have already used the Boot Camp Assistant on the iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) to download the Windows Support Software to a flash drive.

Method 1: Replace the existing BootCamp.msi file.

Replace BootCamp.msi file in the BootCamp/Drivers/Apple folder on the flash drive with the new file. After the Windows installation completes, install the Boot Support Software by executing the setup application in the BootCamp folder on the flash drive. In some cases, this application may start automatically.

I do not think this method resulted in all the drivers being installed. However the missing drivers where downloaded and installed after running "Windows Update" and "Apple Software Update".

Method 2: Upgrade Boot Camp immediately after installing the Windows Support Software.

Copy the new BootCamp.msi file to the root folder on the flash drive. After the Windows installation completes, install the Boot Support Software by executing the setup application in the BootCamp folder on the flash drive. In some cases, this application may start automatically. You should first first encounter the window shown below. Follow the instructions to install the software.

After the Windows Support Software finishing installing, you will get the window shown below. Click on the "Finish" button.

If you get the popup window shown below, click on the "No" button.

Next, open a "Administrator: Command Prompt" window and enter the command given below.  Here, the assumption is made that the flash drive has been assign the drive letter D. If your flash drive has been assigned a different drive letter, then make the appropriate substitution.

D:\BootCamp.msi

You should encounter the window shown below. Follow the instructions to install the software.

When the popup window below appears, click on the "OK" button.

After the Windows Boot Camp Installer finishes, you will get the window shown below. Click on the "Finish" button.

If you get the popup window shown below, click on the "Yes" button. Otherwise, manual restart the Mac.

  Note: If you are in audit mode, do not use the "System Preparation Tool" to restart.

Final Notes

When first executing "Apple Software Update" you may be asked to update "Apple Software Update" itself. If you happens, you should uncheck all other updates and just update "Apple Software Update". Otherwise, you may get an error message saying another update can not be installed. I my case, there were two updates of the "Apple Software Update" to download and install.
You may wonder why not use a more current Boot Camp Installer. I did
try the BootCamp.msi that comes with the Windows Support Software
for the iMac (21.5-inch, 2019). This is the Windows Boot Camp
installer for Version 6.1 (Build 7438). I found this version to be
missing the ability to adjust the screen brightness. If you want to
try this version, then click on this link to download the
BootCampESD.pkg file directly from Apple.

  Note: You can upgrade from Version 5.1 to either 6.0 or 6.1. However, you can not upgrade from 6.0 to 6.1.

I had exactly the same issue on my 2010 iMac, it is a problem caused by one of the Boot Camp keyboard drivers being incompatible with 1903. I have temporarily fixed it by reverting to 1809 which works fine. I booted from a DVD and chose the "repair my PC" option and then chose "Revert to a previous version of Windows". Hopefully the Windows developers will fix this or otherwise it is possible to remove the one driver that causes the problem but it leads to problems controlling volume, brightness etc from the keyboard.


Macfusion - how can I auto connect on boot? I have Macfusion automatically running when I boot, but how can I have it automatically connect to a server?  Can't find this anywhere..

Depending on your version of MacOS, you may be able to use Lingon to create a startup script that runs after you login to your mac.  You will likely need to figure out a command line equivalent to whatever you currently do in the finder to connect to a server.  Run that command in the terminal to verify it works, then create a script using Lingon to execute the command immediately after you login to your Mac.

The project used to be hosted on SourceForge, but "as of 2009-07-06, […] is no longer under active development". See new link above.

Turns out MacFusion is garbage just in case anyone wondered so I abandoned this idea and went back to Cyberduck


How can I sync the new "people" (face recognition) metadata across devices in Photos (iOS 10 and MacOS Sierra)? The new Photos updates for iOS 10 and MacOS Sierra includes a much more powerful and integrated approach to organizing photos by who's in them.  It's built around powerful, on-device facial recognition.

But once it does its automated thing (finding the faces it thinks are the same person), there's still a lot of manual merging and labeling to be done if you have a lot of photos and are as obsessive about organization as I am.

For example, if you have, say... three thousand photos of your daughter, Photos will find almost all of them, but may guess they're 5 or 6 different people.  So you have to merge the buckets that all are one person, assign them a name (so you can search by it), etc.

But unlike other changes (edits, deletions, organization into albums, etc.), manual changes to "people" data don't seem to sync at all by default.

Is there really no way to do this?  It seems bizarre that one of the flagship features Apple's touting in this Photos update doesn't play at all with what was Photos primary selling point over iPhoto - everything synced on all your devices.

Before High Sierra release (and the corresponding iOS annual release) this metadata did not sync. Now that data does sync.
Macworld speculates on the reason behind it:

It’s not clear yet whether [facial recognition data will ever sync] because Apple’s push at its recent [2016] Worldwide Developers Conference was for local analysis of private information that’s never uploaded to the cloud.

I haven't watched it myself, but apparently Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi stated on John Gruber's The Talk Show that it will not happen, that the features are device-specific and will not be synced via iCloud.
Edit: The help file for Photos in macOS Sierra was updated with this:

Note: People identified in the People album are not synced across devices.

You can sync Albums (groups of photos) but you cannot sync Faces (groups of photos)? It would be enough if the analysis ran locally, and then grouping the photos on all devices. After all, the smart album is just a list of photos that (either analysis or user claim to) contain a specific person, and not that different from a syncable album


How to make USB drives connect again in OS X In the following I'll try to explain and ask in the best way I can. I couldn't find any solution for my problem using Google. So if there are any solutions, please point me to them. If you need more information to help out please let me know which information you need.

I don't have lots of information on my problem as I come from a Linux world and don't have experience using OS X. I tried to add a line to /etc/fstab in order to permanently mount a network share.

I added a new line to OS X Yosemite's /etc/fstab using vi.
After reboot /etc/fstab disappeard.
Consequences:

Internal HDD (second drive) didn't mount anymore.
USB drives didn't appear on Desktop.

Thus I made some research and learned:

Used vifs to edit /etc/fstab.
/etc/fstab is depricated.
Disk Utility does not help.

Show usb-stick but cannot mount. Error: 'Mount failed. The disk "" could not be mounted. Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting.'
'Verify Disk' says everything is ok
'Repair Disk' also works fine

It is hard to find information on this topic.
If I mount drive manually using mount as root user, drive appears in GUI and seems to be fully accessible (ex. can be "savely removed").
My problem could be somehow related to /etc/auto_master and /etc/autofs.conf.

$ cat /etc/autofs.conf | grep -v ^# |sort | uniq

AUTOMOUNTD_MNTOPTS=nosuid,nodev
AUTOMOUNTD_NOSUID=TRUE
AUTOMOUNT_TIMEOUT=3600

$ cat /etc/auto_master
#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master        # Use directory service
/net            -hosts      -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home           auto_home   -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers    -fstab
/-          -static
/Volumes        auto_custom

I managed to create an entry in /etc/fstab so second drive mountes again.

My Questions:

What shall I do to make USB drives mount again using GUI only?
What happend? Why did /etc/fstab disappear?

Removing entry:

    /Volumes        auto_custom

In /etc/auto_master answered first question and solved my issue.


Can OS X access files in my Dropbox account without using space on my local hard drive? Question in title. Is there any way for such configuration?
OR at least that files are stored only on one computer.
Of course I am aware that I can use internet browser version of dropbox, but I would like to use the desktop one, but exactly in the way a browser version works, i.e. without losing hard drive space.

Update: See nassimhddd's answer below about ExpanDrive allowing you to mount your DropBox account as (external) drive - since
  its Mac version 3.0.3021 May 2013.

The short answer to this is: No. As far as I'm aware, you can't mount your Dropbox account as some sort of remote file share - its synced files are always written to your local disk.

That said, you can change the location of the Dropbox folder away from its default of ~/Dropbox, so if you have a separate internal or external disk you could put the Dropbox folder there.

You may encounter problems if Dropbox occasionally can't access the detached volume holding its folder, however. See here:

  Your Dropbox folder must be available when your computer boots and
  before the Dropbox desktop application starts. Some USB drives, for
  example, take some time to mount before your computer recognizes them.
  The Dropbox desktop application could start before such a drive is
  ready and get confused. You will receive an error and Dropbox will
  give you the opportunity to relink your Dropbox account or exit if it
  is unable to find your Dropbox folder.

This is a little bit old question, but yes, this can be done very easily.

ExpanDrive is an app that does that. It works not only for Dropbox but also for Google Drive, S3, SFTP WebDAV and many other cloud storage solutions.


After installing Lion my mac became super slow After installing Lion, my macbook pro became unbelievably slow.. what could be the reason?

Safari sometimes freeze for 30 seconds (in particular when there's Flash content). When I open mail after long time, the interface takes a while before to load.

Also Xcode and the simulator are slower.

UPDATE
So this how the system activity looks like when the mac slows down (even the dock bar is not responsive). I need to wait 2 minutes then everything starts to work again as before.

http://cl.ly/9ccS

http://cl.ly/9atU

http://cl.ly/9cFk

Activity monitor is your friend in this case. Check CPU/RAM usage and look for apps/services using a lot of resources, also check how your hard disk is doing in terms of throughput.

I've seen machine's hard disks slow down or just fail after an OS upgrade/install. It's a pretty disk intensive operation and can finish off older disks that were on their way out. Consider that as a possibility - perform a backup as soon as possible if you don't already have a recent one.

Convert your Mac from Super Slow to Super Fast by deleting these files.

1. Cache
2. duplicate files
3. Useless data
4. Unnecessary binary and language files.

There are so many third party tools to speed up Mac Lion performance.


How to disable iPhone notifications from Facebook Places? I've got this long-running annoyance about the Facebook iPhone app.

Now, I do want notifications from Facebook e.g. when someone posts on my wall/timeline or mentions me in a comment.  However, every now and again, some of my friends check in (or whatever it's technically called) somewhere with Facebook, and I get a big alert about it:

I most certainly do not want these notifications! And I don't really follow why Facebook considers someone's random check-in an event that I should be notified about.

Question is, how can I disable these—or all Facebook Places related notifications, while at it? Are there any settings on the Facebook website related to this?

I'm asking at Webapps SE, and not e.g. Apple SE, because I'm pretty sure the iPhone app doesn't have any related settings. The only FB notification setting I see is this one:

(...and as said, I wouldn't want to turn off all FB notifications.)

Turns out I was wrong; you can configure this on iPhone.

As the guide on this page taught me:

Open Settings
Scroll down to the application list and select Facebook
Choose Push Notifications

Now, in my case it was probably Nearby Friends that I mostly wanted to disable. I ended up turning off some others too:

This has been driving me crazy because the notifications show up in the web browser Facebook, but the settings can only be accessed and turned off from the Facebook iOS app.

Note that the Facebook app has a new UI and that these settings are now inside the iOS app. I already had all Facebook iOS notifications off.

Even worse, Facebook's notion of what's nearby makes no sense for an urban area. 15 miles away, across the bridge, who cares? Stop notifying me.

Thanks.


How to find a good replacement iPhone e-reader app? Now that Amazon has sunk the usability flagship among e-readers, Stanza, I am looking for a replacement.  I am not asking for an app recommendation, but I am asking how to find a good replacement?

It seems every app praises itself beyond reason. Every forum peddles whatever app has their fancy. How can I find a good e-reader app without installing and testing them all? Many aren't free and it would be silly to pay for many of them, only to find them all lacking.

Given that there's no recommendation stack exchange (however useful that might be?), how can I provide my requirements and get a sorted list of choices?

This is the problem Apple is grappling with right now.  I'm hoping that they'll have some answer for us this year that helps us deal with the number of competing apps in the app store.
In the meantime, I have a few strategies for finding an app that meets my needs:
Use the app store search.
If you need your ebook reader to support epub, bookmarks, notes, and dropbox, simply type, "epub bookmarks notes dropbox" in the search field of the app store.  I like to sort first by rating and check out the highest rated apps, then by popularity and check out the most downloaded apps. Note that sorting by rating and popularity are only available on the iPad.
I read the reviews, both at the high rate end and low rate end to get an idea of the types of features people are excited about, and the types of problems people are experiencing.
I look at the most recent update notes, and see how long ago it was last updated to get an idea of whether the developer is taking an active role in maintaining the app and is responsive to complaints, or if it's an old app that works, but probably doesn't have new features.
At that point the only thing to do is to try out the ones that look most promising.  Many apps offer a trial or ad supported version, so the trial can be free in many cases.  For others, you'll have to pay a little to try them out, and if they don't fit your needs you've lost a little money and time, but remember that you're picking an app that should fit your needs for a long time - when you find it it will be worth the effort and money you've spent on other apps looking for the perfect one.
Use internet reviews/forums
Do a google search for "best ebook reader ipad" or similar, and you'll often get dozens of "top ten" style lists from people who have spent some time not just reviewing a few apps, but comparing and contrasting them.  You have to do a bit of wading, and you are going to have a hard time finding less popular subjects, "best lawn care app" isn't going to give you such collections because few people will have taken the time to check them out, even though many exist onthe app store.
Ask in appropriate forums
This site, Ask Different, does permit apple and iOS specific product recommendations, for instance, and there are many other forums that are fine with such questions.
You can check out the tag software-recommendation to get examples of the style of questions allowed here.  The tag has this note which might also give you tips on asking for a recommendation:

Recommendations can easily be subjective and local to one person or time. Please be specific about function and broad about timeframe so that your question, once answered objectively, is of use to the community.

I realize your question is specific to e-readers, but my answer is much more general.  You have been warned.

My method for general information gathering is to use my Google Reader to subscribe to just about every interesting source of information I come across on the web.  In-between projects at work, or when I just want a break, I hit up Feedly and see what's on.  At this point I have just about 700 blogs subscribed.  Not all are active, but the ones that are present plenty of information.  Because of the way Feedly and Google Reader are set up, it's easy to ignore items simply by reading the headline.  The j key is your friend!


System notification message in message center I think this is a virus but I'm not sure. I cannot seem to find an answer online on how to make it stop. I have checked under safari and preferences and under system preferences.

"NOTIFICATION SYSTEM" is not a system notification, or not one I've ever seen.

The header is the 'app' generating the notification. In this case, as the icon looks like Safari then it could be some site you allowed to send you notifications.
(As I tend to have most of these switched off, I'm not certain if the wording they use in that header is Safari's or the remote site's responsibility.)

Safari > Preferences > Websites > Notifications

Check which sites you wish to allow to be able to do that - mostly you can switch them off, allow only the ones you really need, otherwise it's a spam-fest