Which is faster for syncing iPhone 4 with iTunes -- USB or WIFI? Is USB or WIFI faster when syncing an iPhone 4 with iOS 5 to iTunes?

This SuperUser answer suggests that Wireless N might be faster than USB 2:
https://superuser.com/questions/288705/speed-comparison-usb-vs-wireless-n-vs-cat-6

Note: iPhone 4 is 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)

USB 2.0 is faster, but Wi-Fi is better.

In practice, Wi-Fi will be superior to USB for syncing and backup since you don't have to worry about plugging it in. It can start as soon as you enter the network, throttle itself based on CPU/iOS activity. You can even start on WiFi and connect your iOS 5 device to USB and syncing will continue at faster speeds if WiFi proves to be slow for a particular sync session.

My experience is the devices can do their thing and sync in the background without me waiting for them and I'm almost always the slowest peg in the process. :-)

However, USB 2.0 speed is faster than 802.11n both in theory and in practice. See this chart from a very nice Apple Insider article on relative speeds relating to Time Capsule performance. The one area where USB (or any other wired connection whether it's USB 2.0, 3.0, FireWire or Thunderbolt) is better than Wi-Fi is latency. If your sync session is largely lots of little checks and no appreciable time is spent waiting for large files to transfer, then the wired connection could be much faster if your sessions are shorter than 15 to 30 seconds in length. Here's another nice article explaining how even a slow USB 2.0 connection can be fast enough for some demanding data transfers: http://www.apogeedigital.com/knowledgebase/quartet/why-doesnt-quartet-use-usb-3-0/

AppleInsider: Exploring Time Capsule: theoretical speed vs practical throughput

If you're syncing over Wifi it will all depend on what else is going on in your network. If it's dead of night and all the other computers are asleep it'll probably be wifi. Some other times it'll be USB. Keep in mind that there's no more syncing screen on USB syncs so you can still do whatever you want while the device is syncing.


How can I get iMessage to verify my phone number? iMessage won't verify my phone number. When I try to select my number for messages to be sent, it's greyed out. So I receive my iMessages over email which I don't want to do.

I've tried: turning iMessage on and off, resetting network settings, rebooting my phone and nothing's worked.

Any ideas?

Looks like you tried all the basic troubleshooting steps.  Heres the next step:

Make sure your data is backed up, either iTunes or iCloud.
Turn iMessage off (make sure to do this).
Erase all contents and settings (this will wipe your device.)   Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Contents and Settings.
Set the phone up as New (make sure to do this)
Turn on iMessage, wait for it to activate.  Once it's activated erase the phone again and restore from your backup.

With iOS 8, you can toggle iMessage off and on.


App Review - Do they allow app names with question marks in? I have submitted my app to the app store 6 times and always been rejected because apparently the UIRequiredCapabilities key is not set correctly.

Well, I've tried many different combinations of things and cannot seem to figure it out and they are not helpful at all.

Doing more research today, I found this https://forum.ionicframework.com/t/apple-store-rejection-uirequireddevicecapabilities/57029/5

The chosen answer says that his issue was because his app name had a question mark in. Is this true, do Apple not allow question marks in the app's title?

My app has a question mark do obviously I would try that (even though it does ruin my app name), but I am a bit fed up of submitting and waiting so I figured it would be good for me and other people in the same situation to have a definitive answer.

EDITED with full rejection message:

Guideline 2.3 - Performance - Accurate Metadata

We were still unable to install the app on iPad and iPhone . The
UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities key in the Info.plist is set in such a way that
the app will not install on an iPad and iPhone.

Next Steps

To resolve this issue, please check the UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities key to
verify that it contains only the attributes required for your app features or
the attributes that must not be present on the device. Attributes specified by
a dictionary should be set to true if they are required and false if they must
not be present on the device.

I had the same issue with @user2397282 it was being rejected because my xcode project has question mark on my project. Had to remove all question marks for it to be accepted.

IT IS A BUG

I opened up a Technical Support Incident with Apple, and they told me it could very well be a bug and that I should raise a bug report.

They also told me to use TestFlight so I can test the app in the same way the Review team would:

  I tested it and was unable to install, it just came up with an error
  I then changed all mentions of my app name, and removed the offending question mark
  I tested it again and it installed just fine

If you have this same issue:

  Change all occurrences of your app name ( I did this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33370175/how-do-i-completely-rename-an-xcode-project-i-e-inclusive-of-folders
  )
  Change the Bundle Display Name is info.plist to contain your original name (with the question mark)

That's it!

Your app will look and work exactly the same, it will just be different in Xcode. This is just a workaround until they actually fix the bug, which according to the link in my question, has been around since 2016...


Running Microsoft Office 2004 on a MacBook Air 2017 High Sierra 10.13.4, I have Microsoft Office:Mac Student and Teacher edition, but when I try to install it says PowerPc not supported? Can I get around this issue. Thanks, Rose

Can I get round this issue?

Not easily. This is 16-year-old software, and lots has changed since then, so that a modern OS can't run it.

While it is possible to 'emulate' an older computing environment that could run the software, this is complicated.

Furthermore, Word 2004 can't open most modern .docx files, which were introduced in 2007. So it wouldn't be very useful to you anyway.

Software has a time to live, and a time to die. Either buy a new version of Office, compatible with your OS, or use a free Office 'clone' like LibreOffice. You can read and save Word files from Apple's Pages, too.

You apparently have a very old version of Microsoft Office. You need to upgrade to a more recent version. There is an emulation program called SheepShaver that will do just what you want. The installation directions are given here. And the home page for Sheepshaver describes what the emulator does. An emulator, in this case, is a software package that will act like a PowerPC system so you can run PowerPC codes. Once you have Sheepshaver running you should be able to load and run your Microsoft ( i hate writing that - lol) software.


What happens if you have more than 1 apple id associated with 1 account...? I have an iPhone with my own Apple ID and my daughter has an iPod Touch with her own Apple ID. Am I able to set iMessages syncing so I get my messages AND all of her messages sent to my iPhone, without having any of MY messages sent to her iPod Touch? (shes 8)

Would I just add her apple id and password on my phone? Will I then get messages for both accounts? And would she still only  receive her messages like normal, but would NOT receive any of my messages?

How would I set that up on my iPhone so all the texting done by me with my contacts are sent from my iPhone, but so that I am also able to view and monitor all her iPod Touch messages?  What will happen if I add her Apple ID to my iPhone?

Will that work?

I understand you want to keep an eye out... but all messages?  and no privacy? ;-)

That said.

What you could try is setting up a extra account (user) on your iMac/Macbook. Hookup her iCloud account there. You can swap between your own account and 'her' account on the fly.

When you then open iMessage on the desktop i think (and expect) that you would find all copies of her iMessages. That is, Apple iMessages, true SMS are not delivered (only on the iPhone). But since she has a iPod Touch... i think you should be safe. Give it a try.

go to settings and add your daughters email address


How to delete original partition I have a question regarding deletion of partitions on a Mac.  Due to some performance issues, I decided to start fresh and created a new partition (NewOSX) on the hard drive, to which I have transferred all the data that I need from my old, original partition (MacintoshHD) along with installing an operating system, downloading apps, etc.  I would now like to go ahead and delete the old partition and merge the disk space into my new setup.  I know this isn’t as simple as deleting the newer partition would be, as the minus sign in the disk utility partition menu is greyed out.

Here is the info of the two partitions that I am referring to:

Macintosh HD
Capacity: 119.2 GB
Used:     47.54 GB
Device:   disk0s2

NewOSX
Capacity:  129.35 GB
Used:      34.69  GB
Device:    disk0s4

I am wondering if there is (hopefully) a less than super-technical workaround that can accomplish this task.  Thank you.

Note: Though there is 47 GB still on the old partition (MacintoshHD), I no longer need anything from it and it is ready to be wiped clean.  Also, both partitions are running the “El Capitan” operating system.

diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
start            size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  232811696      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  233221336    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  234490872  252636720      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  487127592    1269536      5  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  488397128          7
  488397135         32         Sec GPT table
  488397167          1         Sec GPT header

Update

After having some trouble with Internet Recovery Mode and seeing my system crash a few times during reboot, I decided I didn't want to take any risks and mess around with Recovery HDs at all.  What I ended up doing was wiping Macintosh HD clean, reinstalling the operating system, and then took a few hours to manually transfer data, redo settings, etc., from NewOSX to Macintosh HD.  Then went to disk utility and deleted the NewOSX partition, which of course is a simple procedure.  Thanks for the assistance, wish I had realized the simple solution earlier.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Why not just back up your data and wipe the entire partition? I suppose if you want to learn how to move things around and you already have a bootable backup that you've tested, the plan of action you propose might be an interesting learning experience.

For anyone that's not sure they can pull off this, Apple posts supported instructions for a wipe and reinstall.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18869

It uses the Recovery Partition to perform the wipe. If you don't run caching server to keep fast access to the installer you downloaded, you can make a USB bootable drive to do the deed as well.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

These are supported and designed to avoid human errors. Also, it ensures you get a clean partition table with a supported Recovery HD partition for ongoing maintenance and efficient management of OS X.

You can do this pretty easily in Disk Utility. Select the hard drive in question (highlighted in blue in this image):

and click Partition in the top toolbar. Then select the partition you want to delete, and delete it by clicking the "-" button.


Clash of Clans Bases and Game Center Accounts About a month ago I bought a new iPhone. Previously, I had been playing Clash of Clans on another device on one Game Center account. When I bought the iPhone, I set up another Game Center account. I would like to sync my base from the old account to the new account so I can play on my iPhone.

How could I do this?

Use your old Game Center account for your new device too.
Or you can follow the guide here: http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Center_User_Guide

Link a device. Settings/device/link device . Then you do the rest. Hope this helps


Using Terminal, how can I find which directory is my USB drive mounted in? I am using Terminal and have looked through directories.

I just can't find where my USB drive its directory is.

Which directory is my USB drive mounted in?

All drives (internal, external and networked) get mounted in /Volumes. You should see a folder there with the name of your USB drive as it appears on your desktop or in the Finder.

easy peezy lemon squeezy.

cd /volumes/whatever-the-name-of-volume

if that doesn't work then do it step by step

cd /volume and then cd into whatever the name is of the device.


How can I receive FM radio broadcast signals on an iPhone 4? I know I can download apps such as Wunder Radio or iHeartRadio that tune in to the same signal over the internet as is being broadcast over commercial FM stations, but I want to use my iPhone to receive input from a real FM tuner.

Many times smaller stations do not stream and often other services, such as audio of TV on a Gym, some museums and traffic warning stations as well as conferences where live translations in several languages are broadcast over different FM frequencies.

Is there a particular app for this or maybe a third-party device I can purchase?

The only iOS device that features a built-in FM tuner is the iPod nano, since the fifth generation (the tall "candy-bar" style before they shrunk to the square shape). The sixth generation (current, as of this writing) iPod nano still has the FM Tuner.

It is impossible to merely download an app on any iOS device (iPod touch / iPhone / iPad ) to accomplish this with any modern/iOS device because you have to have the physical radio that can tune FM/AM radio bands. Now, if they streamed to some network location which an app can easily access...

I would like to mention also that the Griffin and Belkin products in The Apple Store ARE NOT tuners. They are transmitters. They broadcast (short range) on FM frequencies, so you can tune in using your car stereo, or perhaps some kind of radio tuner alarm clock you may have in your house.

The iHome speaker does appear to do FM tuning, but that is likely not practical in the example you're asking about. Go with the iPod nano.

No way you can do it on iPhone, unless you purchase an FM receiver such as the Griffin iFM Radio Receiver for iPhone and iPod


iOS - Getting iPhone 6s plus storage full alert message Since yesterday, I'm getting a storage full alert message (not iCloud) on my iPhone 6s plus, iOS 9.2.1.

Overall, my apps installed would take at most 10GB.

Within Settings, the iPhone says it has 4.8 GB free.
Inside of iTunes, it says 8.4 GB free.

Also from iTunes, the Documents and Data section seems to take a lot of space (55% to 60% aprox.).

Has anyone have a solution around this?

I'm also having the same issue like you are. I was using the Public Beta version 4 of iOS 9.3 and that suddenly happened, it threw 710MB of free space on my phone into an unknown black-hole. I forced installed the iOS 9.2.1 (13D20 version) onto my iPhone 6 last night, freeing 16 GB from the phone. However I've lost them all again today with only 2.2 GB of free space left. The documents and data cannot be seen in the storage settings on my iPhone 6 at all. You're not alone on this one.

Whatsapp is the issue.... Update and problem is gone


Installing Ubuntu on Mac with macOS and Windows already installed I have a dual-boot MacBook Pro late 2013 with macOS Sierra and Windows 10 (BOOTCAMP) already installed. I want to install Ubuntu as a third OS. Is there any (easy) way to do it?

> Disk Partitions:

> Gpt dev disk0

> Fdisk disk0

An update version of this has been posted here.

  Note: These instruction have been updated for use with Ubuntu 18.

This answer installs Ubuntu on your computer without the use of third parity tools for either the installation of booting of Ubuntu. The Ubuntu file I downloaded was named ubuntu-16.10-desktop-amd64.iso. I assume you have created a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive installer and have verified the contents. I also assume you have verified hardware compatibility by successfully booting the live version of Ubuntu. These instructions have been divided into the three main sections listed below.

Create Space on the Drive for Ubuntu : This is accomplished by using the MacOS Terminal application to enter commands.
Install Ubuntu : This uses the Ubuntu flash drive installer.
Add Ubuntu to Startup Manager - Here you basically use the MacOS to move the necessary files to the proper locations. This will allow
Ubuntu to be selected from the Startup Manager. You will not need
rEFInd to boot Ubuntu.

  Note: If another user has a different partition scheme than shown in this example, the post a comment to me and I will try to update my answer.

Create Space on the Drive for Ubuntu

For the purpose of illustrating the steps needed, I created a drive slightly larger than your actual drive.

  Note: macOS 10.11 and above have System Integrity Protection (SIP). You must disable this before following the commands below.

The output from diskutil list disk0 is given below.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            180.7 GB   disk0s2
   3:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                70.1 GB    disk0s4

The output from sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0 is given below.

      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  352968704      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  353378344       4056
  353382400      32768      3  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
  353415168  136818688      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  490233856    9766151
  500000007         32         Sec GPT table
  500000039          1         Sec GPT header

The output from sudo fdisk /dev/disk0 is given below.

  Note: After repartitioning the drive, you should verify that the values shown below have not changed. Certain changes will cause Windows to view the drive as hybrid partitioned. If this occurs, Windows may fail to boot or malfunction.

Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 31123/255/63 [500000040 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  500000039] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

I decided to allow total of about 40 GB for Ubuntu. If you need a different size, then make the appropriate adjustments. I will be creating 3 new partitions for Ubuntu. A description for each is given below.

A Swap partition. The size of this partition should be between 1 to 2
times the size of the memory installed in your Mac computer. I will be
using a size of 800 MB. Obviously, the size you will be using will be
much larger.
A Ext4 Journaling file system partition to hold Ubuntu. This
partition will consume most the approximately 40 GB of space I
allocated for Ubuntu.
An EFI System partition. This is required for Ubuntu to appear on the
Mac Startup Manager. This manager appears when you turn on or restart
your Mac and hold down the option key. The Startup Manager
can be used to change the default startup disk (i.e. operating
system) or can be used to temporarily boot from a startup disk. I
have chosen size of 500 MB for this partition.

I have chosen to allow the Ubuntu installer to actually create the 3 new partitions. So at this point, I only need to shrink the MacOS partition by approximately 40 GB and create 3 new placeholder partitions. The placeholders will be replaced later by the Ubuntu installer with the actual partitions described above.

The command to change to partitioning is given below. Since the MacOS partition is about 180 GB, I used a desired value of 140 GB (140G). Also, I used a value of 800 MB (800M) for the size of the new Swap partition. Since you will desire a larger size, then you will need to make the appropriate substitution. Note: The two values of 200 MB (200M) were chosen arbitrarily, these values will change later.

diskutil resizevolume disk0s2 140G 3 jhfs+ part1 800M jhfs+ part2 200M jhfs+ part3 200M

The output from this command is shown below.

Started partitioning on disk0s2 Macintosh HD
Verifying the disk
Verifying file system
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume
Checking extents overflow file
Checking catalog file
Checking multi-linked files
Checking catalog hierarchy
Checking extended attributes file
Checking volume bitmap
Checking volume information
The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK
File system check exit code is 0
Resizing
Waiting for the disks to reappear
Formatting disk0s3 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name part1
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s3 as a 763 MB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
Formatting disk0s4 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name part2
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s4 as a 191 MB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
Formatting disk0s5 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name part3
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s5 as a 37 GB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
Finished partitioning on disk0s2 Macintosh HD
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            140.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS part1                   800.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS part2                   200.0 MB   disk0s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS part3                   39.5 GB    disk0s5
   6:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s6
   7:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                70.1 GB    disk0s7

  Note: The last 200M was ignored by the diskutil command. Instead, most of the remaining free space was allocated to the disk0s5 slice.

The output from sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0 is given below.

      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  273437496      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  273847136     262144
  274109280    1562496      3  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  275671776     390616      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  276062392   77057864      5  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  353120256     262144
  353382400      32768      6  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
  353415168  136818688      7  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  490233856    9766151
  500000007         32         Sec GPT table
  500000039          1         Sec GPT header

The output from the command sudo fdisk /dev/disk0 is unchanged from what was given above.

Install Ubuntu

Insert the Ubuntu flash drive and restart the Mac. Hold down the
option key to invoke the Startup Manager. Select to EFI
boot from the USB flash drive. When prompted, choose the option
shown below.

  Note: For a better view, either click on the image or open the image in a new window.

Select language.

I choose to select both options below.

Choose the option shown below.

Select the partition shown below. This partition should be the same
size as previously specified for the Swap partition when the
diskutil resize volume command was entered.

Click on "Change..." and select "swap area" in the popup window as
shown below. Do not change the partition size. Next, click on
"OK".

Select the partition shown below. Next, click on the "-" to delete
this partition.

Select the free space as shown below.

Click on the "+" to open a "Create partition" popup window. Select
"EFI System Partition". Also, change the size to 500 MB and click on
the "End of this space" button. Next, click on "OK".

Select the partition shown below. Next, click on the "-" to delete
 this partition.

Select the free space as shown below.

Click on the "+" to open a "Create partition" popup window. Select
 "Ext4 journaling file system". Also, select "/" as the "Mount
 point". Do not change the partition size. Next, click on "OK".

Click on the "Install Now" button shown below.

Click on the "Continue" button shown below.

Select your desired location.

Select your keyboard.

Continue and install Ubuntu Linux. When finished, restart and hold
 down the option key to invoke the Startup Manager.
 Select to boot from the MacOS volume.

Add Ubuntu to Startup Manager

After installing Ubuntu, the command diskutil list disk0 produced the following output.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            140.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Linux Swap                         800.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:           Linux Filesystem                          39.3 GB    disk0s4
   5:                        EFI NO NAME                 500.2 MB   disk0s5
   6:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s6
   7:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                70.1 GB    disk0s7

The command sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0 produced the following output.

      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  273437496      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  273847136     262144
  274109280    1562496      3  GPT part - 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F
  275671776       1312
  275673088   76732416      4  GPT part - 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4
  352405504     976896      5  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
  353382400      32768      6  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
  353415168  136818688      7  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  490233856    9766151
  500000007         32         Sec GPT table
  500000039          1         Sec GPT header

  Note: The 3 placeholder partitions have be replaced by the partitions specified while installing Ubuntu.

To make Ubuntu appear in the Startup Manager, execute the following steps.

Mount the EFI System partitions by entering the commands given
below.

sudo diskutil mount disk0s1
sudo diskutil mount disk0s5

Use the Finder application to copy the EFI folder from volume
EFI to the volume NO NAME.
If you are not installing Ubuntu 18 or newer, then you can skip steps 4, 5 and 6.
Move all the folders and files in the EFI/Boot folder on the EFI volume to the Trash.
Copy the file bootmgfw.efi on the EFI volume from the folder /EFI/Microsoft/Boot to the folder /EFI/Boot.
Rename the file bootmgfw.efi in the /EFI/Boot folder on the EFI volume to the name bootx64.efi.
Remove the folders and files that were added to the EFI volume
during the Ubuntu installation. To accomplish this, move the folder
EFI/Ubuntu on the EFI volume to the Trash.
Remove the Microsoft related files from the NO NAME volume. To
accomplish this, move the folder EFI/Microsoft on the NO NAME volume to the Trash.
If you are installing Ubuntu 18 or newer, then you can skip steps 10, 11 and 12.
Move the file EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi on the NO NAME volume to the Trash.
Copy the file grubx64.efi on the NO NAME volume from the folder /EFI/ubuntu to the folder /EFI/Boot.
Rename the file grubx64.efi in the /EFI/Boot folder on the NO NAME volume to the name bootx64.efi.
Empty the Trash.
(Optional) Download a collection of icons from the sourceforge web
site Mac icns. Use the Finder application to open the
downloaded file mac-ices.dmg, then enter the command below to copy
the Ubuntu icon file os_ubuntu.icns to the NO NAME volume.

cp /Volumes/mac-icns/os_ubuntu.icns "/Volumes/NO NAME/.VolumeIcon.icns"

This will add the following Ubuntu icon to the Startup Menu.

  Note: When finished, you can use the Finder application to eject the mac-icns volume.

Use the Finder application or enter the commands below to unmount
the EFI System partitions labeled EFI and NO NAME.

diskutil unmount disk0s1
diskutil unmount disk0s5

Install Ubuntu. Insert the Ubuntu flash drive and restart the Mac. Hold down the option key to invoke the Startup Manager. Select to boot from the USB flash drive.


How to set up equal height columns with a title on top? This is what I'm trying to do on Pages '09: two equal height columns with a title on top. Any suggestions?

I just got it to work — inserted a layout break after my headline and set it up as a one-column layout and the rest of the content as a two-column layout. Applied some padding to it and it's perfect.


Is it possible to disable Apple Watch iMessage notifications while my MacBook Air is unlocked? I know that Apple Watch notifications are silenced while you are using your iPhone in order to prevent duplicate notifications. Is it possible to extend this functionality to silence my Apple Watch notifications while I am using my MacBook Air? I would only like to receive iMessage notifications on my Apple Watch when I am not using both my iPhone and MacBook Air.


Terminal returns not found for most commands Mac OSX I'm really new to Mac OSX and UNIX based systems. I wanted to run a few Windows games on my Mac Mini so I started installing Wine and MacPorts.
I think the installs are correct, but when I type sudo port install wine I see a not found error in my terminal. I tried other basic commands like say and clear and all of them return the same not found error.
My research shows that my PATH might be incorrectly set, but it lacks steps I can implement.
Specifically, I ran this command: echo $PATH and it returned:

/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/opt/local/bin

I'm a complete newbie to mac and have no idea where .bash_profile or any of those files are. My skills let me install Xcode and the Command Line tools for Xcode and I sense I need to level up on path management.
At this point I need help managing my dot files and changing my path to fix these specific errors on Mountain Lion.
What are my next steps?

$PATH should contain these folders: /usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin.

Try editing ~/.bash_profile, ~/.profile, or ~/.bash_login (with for example /usr/bin/open ~/.bash_profile -a TextEdit) and commenting out any lines that modify the path.

If that works, you can add a line like export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH to ~/.bash_profile.

Check to see if the folder-address is present in PATH variable. Type on the terminal:
echo $PATH

Terminal will display: /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin ...(other paths in concatenation)
My prime motivation to share this answer is, you must first check if PATH variable includes the folder-address, which you are looking for, as one of its values. Moreover, the PATH fetches its values from multiple locations such as  /etc/path, ~/.bash_profile, /etc/path.d, ~/.zshrc
If you can't find yours, then it's evident that folder-address must be included in PATH. If it isn't, PATH won't be able to recognize your command. You can achieve this in these 2 ways:
(Method 'B' worked like a charm for me)
A. (May work) Write it inside .bash_profile file in ~ i.e. Home folder (like many previous answers have mentioned above.)
B. (100% works) Write it inside the /etc/paths file. (paths file is found inside /etc folder. Firstly, make sure you have read+write access in order to edit this file. Secondly, system settings won't allow editing because editing creates a duplicate copy of this file which will be irrelevant. Hence, better edit with it vim). Simply insert the folder-address at a new line in this file.
Relaunch your terminal and fire up the command you wanna check for.


Hiding items from the Applications folder without touching them I have a link to the Applications folder on my dock - basically it's a great, unobtrusive, quick launcher when I'm already using the mouse.

Problem is, it's cluttered up by a bunch of junk I don't want there. Dashboard, which I never use, Photo Booth, and other detritus that just clutters up the view.

I'd like to remove those somehow - but I'm not interested in a number of common workarounds for this use case:

I don't want to actually mess with the contents of the folder, which rules out every idea given in this answer. Setting the .app folders +hidden or putting a dot in their names means I have to disable SIP, and besides this could cause issues with updating or using the app later should I need it. I don't want to trash the apps either.
I don't want to maintain a separate folder with aliases to this one - having newly installed apps visible in this folder by default usually means I can launch them faster with the mouse than I can with cmd-space and finding it with Spotlight (since spotlight takes a while to update its cache)

Ideally, I could remove certain items from my "view" of the folder, but leave the actual folder untouched.

Is there a way to do this? Some feature I've overlooked or some app that provides an unobtrusive dock menu?

Go to the Applications folder, then do 'Find', and search for any application whose name is not (X, Y, Z).  Save the search, and add the search to your dock.

You should be using Launchpad to achieve this. Launchpad will give you a similar view and allow you to organize all your apps in folders and separate pages (similar to iPhone).

You can drag the icon (Grey rocket ship) to your dock and/or set up "hot corners" (found in screen saver settings) where if you move your mouse into a chosen corner of the screen it will bring up launchpad.


Screen sharing MacBook-pro to iMac I wonder if there is someway of sharing the screen on my macbook pro (which stands on the right of my iMac) to the iMac, so that I can use the same keyboard and mouse for both computers.
I believe there was someway of doing this between windows and linux a few years ago using a kind of SSH-tunnel, but cannot find the application or what its called.

Any help?

Screen Sharing
Screen sharing is actually built-in already. Enable "Screen Sharing" in System Preferences -> Sharing on the computer you want to access remotely. Then you can access it from the Finder either by selecting it in the sidebar window or directly via Cmd-K and entering the address vnc://IP-Address or vmc://Bonjour Name.local.

If you've got an iCloud account, the easiest way to share a screen on Mac is to use Back to My Mac which is part of OS X and free. It can be a bit tricky to setup the first time you use it but once it's done, it's very convenient. Alternatively, there are plenty of free screen sharing apps for Mac that allow you to connect to any Mac anywhere and share the screen such as TeamViewer and LogMeIn. Hope it helps!


Install new NANO (2.4) using BREW but still uses old versions (symbolic link not created?) I installed NANO 2.4 but my OS X is still using 2.0. I beleive its something to do with the symbolic link that wasn't created.

I first tapped the homebrew/dupes so i could brew install nano

~  brew tap homebrew/dupes
==> Tapping homebrew/dupes

~  brew install nano
==> Installing nano from homebrew/homebrew-dupes

If I do a

which nano

I get

/usr/bin/nano

but the brew installed in the directory below and I have it confirmed as 2.4 by running the program directlt from here

/usr/local/Cellar/nano/2.4.2_1/bin

I think a symbolic link wasn't created becasue nano is already included with mac os x, is it safe to override it ?

I got the following warning on the brew install from

==> Downloading https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-6.0.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ncurses/6.0 --enable-pc-files --enable
==> make install
==> Caveats This formula is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /usr/local.

OS X already provides this software and installing another version in
parallel can cause all kinds of trouble.

Generally there are no consequences of this for you. If you build your
own software and it requires this formula, you'll need to add to your
build variables:

    LDFLAGS:  -L/usr/local/opt/ncurses/lib
    CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/ncurses/include

==> Summary   /usr/local/Cellar/ncurses/6.0: 1970 files, 21M, built in 114 seconds

You can always create a symlink in /usr/local/bin manually, which (depending on the order of path components in $PATH) will then shadow the standard binary in /usr/bin. As nano is used interactively only, the risk of breaking anything is probably rather small.

I was having the same issue, the reason was, wrong path priority.

To fix you have to edit /etc/paths (global system file) and set /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin.

In my case, my paths file was:

/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/local/bin

And I modified to:

/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

Then save the file and restart the terminal session. All OK after that.


How to get Siri to read result from the web Siri is frustrating. I can ask her a question like "what causes brain freeze" (as one does), and she'll say "I found this on the web". But if I then ask her to "speak screen" or "read page", or even "read it to me", she has no idea what I'm talking about and tells me there's nothing to read.

Folk, I understand how to get my phone to read a page. What I don't understand is how completely hands-free you can ask Siri a question and get her to read the web page of the result she just found you.

Alexa can do it. Google can do it. What's wrong with Siri?

AFAIK, you can use Siri to speak screen when the results are open in Safari, or when it shows specific excerpt from Wikipedia or WolframAlpha etc. for say, word meanings or definitions.

For the results in the overlay, it seems not possible to me.

I search using iPhone's spotlight and then use "search the web" at the bottom in case I need more results.

You can look into setting up a automation for opening safari and reading it out aloud.

I had similar problem but with turning on "Hey siri" I managed to get it to read SOME results even tho I was asking similar questions


How to get access to an admin account without an admin account without losing data My wife just left me, but changed the password to the admin account on my iMac just to spite me, and I have no way of contacting her. I have a separate managed account for my brother when he was staying with us not too long ago, and she didn't change the password to that. She also signed in with her Apple ID so I can't reset the password, and I don't know her Apple ID password to reset it, nor do I have access to her email. Is there anything I can do to get access to the admin account?

Break a password
search for Mac Password Reset Software
Access user account data
If the fileVault was not enabled then you can access your account data by connecting your disk to another computer.
Contact Apple Support
You are not the first one in this situation. Apple Support should have already an answer for this question


Can the formula bar font in Excel 2011 be changed? Is it possible to change the font, specifically the size of the font, in the formula bar of Excel 2011?

I've found a number of resources to do this in the Windows version but none of those instructions seem to apply to the Mac version...

http://www.excelforum.com/excel-general/837994-formula-bar-text-size.html

Seems like "no" for 2011.  Grr.. very frustrating!


How can I prohibit network users from accessing other user's home folders using Server permissions? I have a 10.8 server, network users on a shared drive 'User Data' - used as a AFP for home folders, OD is on. All users are part of a group 'students 2013/14'.

My network user can login via OD over a network, however the permissions are not set correctly, since network user accounts can access all other users folder read/write on the sharepoint.

Question:
How can I set the permissions in Server.app correctly so that network users can login, use their server based home folder w/r but not access other network user home folders using the student 2013/14 group?

Launch Server.app
Click "File Sharing."
Click "Users."
Use Minus Sign to Remove Certain Users from Certain Folders.


MacBook Pro stuck on GRUB minimal Bash at startup I had a dual boot Linux Mint 19 and macOS on my MacBookPro11,2. Since the CPU was overheating with Linux, I decided today to delete the Linux partition.
Little problem, when I start my MacBook Pro now, I just have this menu on startup:

  "GNU Grub version 2.02 - Minimal BASH-Like line editing is supported
  grub>"

If I type ls, this is what I get:

  (hd0) (hd1) (hd1,gpt2) (hd1,gpt1).

What could I do to boot into macOS?

Output from diskutil list disk0.

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2: FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF               228.8 GB   disk0s2

Use Startup Manager

When you use Startup Manager to select a startup disk, your Mac starts up from that disk once, then returns to using the disk selected in Startup Disk preferences.

Press and hold the option key immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac.
Release the Option key when you see the Startup Manager window.

  If your Mac is protected by a firmware password, you can release the key when you're asked to enter the password.

Select your startup disk, then click the arrow under its icon, or press Return.

  If you press and hold the control key during this step, your selection is saved in Startup Disk preferences, so it persists until you change it.

If your Mac is using OS X Lion 10.7.3 or later, you can also use this method to start up from your Time Machine backup disk. Startup Manager identifies your Time Machine backup as ”EFI Boot.”

References
The above answer was copied from "How to select a different startup disk", https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202796, January 29, 2019.

It seams that remove linux partition broken your MacOS partition with a wrong type FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF, you can try to restore MacOS partition with proper type in recovery mode terminal.
I fix this issue with this answer: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/307787/246241


Can't see a specific external hard drive I was trying to make an NTFS hard drive writable on my macbook. I tried the way mentioned in this link: https://www.maketecheasier.com/write-ntfs-partition-os-x-yosemite/

Now I can make changes on my hard drive. But there is another problem. After unmounting - mounting the hard drive, now I can see it only in Volumes folder. I can't bring it back to sidebar or desktop.

I tried other hard drives, they work normally.

Thanks in advance!

Note: I have 10.10.4 installed.

This is expected behavior.  You specifically told it to not show up in your fstab file, with the "nobrowse" parameter.  If you want it on the desktop to have a quick shortcut to it, create a symlink.

ln -s /Volumes/VOLUME_NAME ~/Desktop/VOLUME_NAME

have you tried verifying and repairing disk and permissions for your external HD by using disk utility? If not, open disk utility. Your external disk probably will be shown up at the left. Select it and first repair disk permissions. And also verify disk as well from here.


MacOS Catalina change word delimiter language region setting I would like dash (-) to be considered a letter so if I double-click on
1d18830d-0250-ee03-0c48-6ff9d89dfcff
the entire string is selected and not just one segment.
It seems you used to be able to select a English Language region:
United States (Computer)
to get that behavior but I don't see that choice in preferences anymore.
Is there a way to add that region or copy the "United States" region and modify it for this?
I'm currently running Catalina, but if this changes in Big Sur, tips for it would be welcome too.
Thanks

To choose a region go to System Preferences and then to Language and Region. In Language and Region there is an option to select you region.  Mine was initially set to United States which is what I want.
You can try putting quotes around the name with dashes in it. and see if that works. or convert - to _ and use that.
I'm running Big Sur on an iMac.


How can one start a process and monitor its syslog messages? I would like to start a process and monitor its LOG_DEBUG syslog messages.

I know that I can change the filter of an already running process with syslog -c process (and then monitor its messages with syslog -w -k Sender process), but that requires the process already to be running and furthermore fills up logfiles with messages that I only need temporarily.

Is my only option to change the running configuration with syslog -config, then later restore the configuration once I have read the messages I want?  Surely there is a "better" way.

Using the tail command in Terminal.app will follow a log file and print out in real time whats being written to just that log file.

tail -f /path/to/your/log/file.log

If your process has a common name that shows in every log file, like com.my.process you can tail the file and grep out for that keyword/process.

tail -f /var/log/system.log | grep "com.my.process"

tail command


Keyboard shows on iPhone 4 on lock screen and home screen I just upgraded to iOS 7.1. Now there is a permanent keyboard on the lower half of my screen in locked mode and on home screen. How do you get rid of it?

This is a glitch — simply reboot to fix it, either by rebooting normally or by doing a hard reset (hold both home & power until the Apple logo appears).

I activated Siri, and when Siri went away so did the keyboard.


Why can’t I redownload Minecraft when I deleted it I paid for Minecraft on the App Store. I accidentally deleted it and now I can’t get it back. I signed into all 3 of my accounts but it always says minecraft costs money. How do I fix this?

Some reasons why this could be.

You changed your country or region:

  If you previously changed the country or region of your Apple ID, you might not see all of your past purchases.

Also try:

  If you can't find an item that you want to redownload, check your purchase history to make sure that you purchased it with the Apple ID that you're signed in with. If not, sign in with a different Apple ID.

Your purchases could be hidden:

  If you don't see items in your
  purchase history on other Apple IDs,
  check to see if the purchases are
  hidden. If your purchases are hidden,
  you might not see them even after you
  follow the steps in this article.

Additionally if the purchase was part
of a Family Sharing group and you
have been removed from it you can’t
re-download it.

I believe that the App Store nor Mojang are aware if you delete Minecraft, therefore if you try to download it again - and they do not know that you had it already - they will try to charge you. If you try to tell them (either Mojang or App Store) that, they will probably charge you anyway because they will (both) do whatever they can to make themselves money. Hope this helps.


Will iPhone 4 turn on automatically when charging? If my iPhone 4 dies, will it turn back on automatically after I put it on charge?

The reason I ask this is my lock button is broken and I'm afraid to let my phone die. What should I do?

Yes, it will turn on once it reaches the minimum charge needed to start the phone.

When the battery is completely drained, you would just see a depleted battery icon (with a connect to charger prompt) for a few seconds if you press the Sleep/Wake button or the Home button. Once you connect it to the charger, it will charge for a few minutes and automatically start up, taking you to the lock screen.

At any time, you can wake your phone by pressing either the Sleep/Wake button (on top) or the Home button (below the touchscreen).

There is another way also. while charging u should reboot it.


What is the "rootless" feature in El Capitan, really? I have just learned about the "Rootless" feature in El Capitan, and I am hearing things like "There is no root user", "Nothing can modify /System" and "The world will end because we can't get root".

What is the "Rootless" feature of El Capitan at a technical level? What does it actually mean for the user experience and the developer experience? Will sudo -s still work, and, if so, how will the experience of using a shell as root change?

First: the name "rootless" is misleading, since there's still a root account, and you can still access it (the official name, "System Integrity Protection", is more accurate). What it really does is limit the power of the root account, so that even if you become root, you don't have full control over the system. Essentially, the idea is that it's too easy for malware to get root access (e.g. by presenting an auth dialog to the user, which will cause the user to reflexively enter the admin password). SIP adds another layer of protection, which malware can't penetrate even if it gets root. The bad part of this, of course, it that it must also apply to things you're doing intentionally. But the restrictions it places on root aren't that bad; they don't prevent most "normal" system customization.
Here's what it restricts, even from root:

You can't modify anything in /System, /bin, /sbin, or /usr (except /usr/local); or any of the built-in apps and utilities. Only Installer and software update can modify these areas, and even they only do it when installing Apple-signed packages. But since normal OS X-style customizations go in /Library (or ~/Library, or /Applications), and unix-style customizations (e.g. Homebrew) go in /usr/local (or sometimes /etc or /opt), this shouldn't be a big deal. It also prevents block-level writes to the startup disk, so you can't bypass it that way.
The full list of restricted directories (and exceptions like /usr/local and a few others) is in /System/Library/Sandbox/rootless.conf. Of course, this file is itself in a restricted area.
When you upgrade to El Capitan, it moves any "unauthorized" files from restricted areas to /Library/SystemMigration/History/Migration-(some UUID)/QuarantineRoot/.

You can't attach to system processes (e.g. those running from those system locations) for things like debugging (or changing what dynamic libraries they load, or some other things). Again, not too much of a big deal; developers can still debug their own programs.
This does block some significant things like injecting code into the built-in Apple apps (notably the Finder). It also means that dtrace-based tools for system monitoring (e.g. opensnoop) will not be able to monitor & report on many system processes.

You can't load kernel extensions (kexts) unless they're properly signed (i.e. by Apple or an Apple-approved developer). Note that this replaces the old system for enforcing kext signing (and the old ways of bypassing it). But since v10.10.4 Apple has had a way to enable trim support for third-party SSDs, the #1 reason to use unsigned kexts has gone away.

Starting in Sierra (10.12), some launchd configuration settings cannot be changed (for example, some launch daemons cannot be unloaded).

Starting in Mojave (10.14), access to users' personal information (email, contacts, etc) is restricted to apps that the user has approved to access that info. This is generally considered a separate feature (called Personal Information Protection, or TCC), but it's based on SIP and disabling SIP disables it as well. See: "What and how does macOS Mojave implement to restrict applications access to personal data?"

Starting in Catalina (10.15), protection of most system files is strengthened by storing them on a separate read-only volume. This is not strictly part of SIP, and is not disabled by disabling SIP. See: WWDC presentation on "What's New in Apple [Catalina] File Systems" and "What's /System/Volumes/Data?".

Starting in Big Sur (11.x), the read-only system volume is now a "Sealed System Volume" (a mounted snapshot rather than a regular volume), so making changes to it is even more complicated. See: the Eclectic Light Company article "Big Sur boot volume layout".

If you don't want these restrictions -- either because you want to modify your system beyond what this allows, or because you're developing & debugging something like kexts that aren't practical under these restrictions, you can turn SIP off. Currently this requires rebooting into recovery mode and running the command csrutil disable (and you can similarly re-enable it with csrutil enable).
Modifying the system volume in Catalina requires disabling SIP, then mounting the volume with write access (and then rebooting and turning SIP back on is recommended). In Big Sur, additional steps are required to disable authentication of the system volume before changes, and afterward create a new snapshot.
You can also selectively disable parts of SIP. For example, csrutil enable --without kext will disable SIP's kernel extension restriction, but leave its other protections in place.
But please stop and think before disabling SIP, even temporarily or partially: do you really need to disable it, or is there a better (SIP-compliant) way to do what you want? Do you really need to modify something in /System/Library or /bin or whatever, or could it go in a better place like /Library or /usr/local/bin etc? SIP may "feel" constraining if you aren't used to it, and there are some legitimate reasons to disable it, but a lot of what it enforces it really just best practice anyway.
To underscore the importance of leaving as much of SIP enabled as much of the time as possible, consider the events of September 23, 2019. Google released an update to Chrome that tried to replace the symbolic link from /var to /private/var. On most systems, SIP blocked this and there were no bad effects. On systems with SIP disabled, it rendered macOS broken and unbootable. The most common reason for disabling SIP was to load unapproved (/improperly signed) kernel extensions (specifically video drivers); if they'd only disabled the kext restriction, they would not have been affected. See the official Google support thread, a superuser Q&A on it, and an Ars Technica article.
References and further info: WWDC presentation on "Security and Your Apps", a good explanation by Eldad Eilam on quora.com, the Ars Technica review of El Capitan, and an Apple support article on SIP, and a deep dive by Rich Trouton (who also posted an answer to this question).

System Integrity Protection (SIP) is an overall security policy with the goal of preventing system files and processes from being modified by third parties. To achieve this, it has the following concepts:

File system protection
Kernel extension protection
Runtime protection

File system protection

SIP prevents parties other than Apple from adding, deleting or modifying directories and files stored in certain directories:

/bin
/sbin
/usr
/System

Apple has indicated that the following directories are available for developers to access:

/usr/local
/Applications
/Library
~/Library

All directories in /usr except for /usr/local are protected by SIP.

It is possible to add, remove or change SIP-protected files and directories via an installer package which is signed by Apple's own certificate authority. This allows Apple to make changes to SIP-protected parts of the OS without needing to change the existing SIP protections.

The certificate authority in question is reserved by Apple for their own use; Developer ID-signed installer packages are not able to alter SIP-protected files or directories.

To define which directories are protected, Apple has currently defined two configuration files on the filesystem. The primary one is found at the location below:

/System/Library/Sandbox/rootless.conf

where rootless.conf lists all the applications and the top-level of directories which SIP is protecting.

Applications

SIP is protecting the core apps which OS X installs into Applications and Applications Utilities. This means it will no longer be possible to delete the applications which OS X installs, even from the command line when using root privileges.

Directories

SIP is also protecting a number of directories and symlinks outside of /Applications and the top level of those directories are also listed in rootless.conf.

In addition to protections, Apple has also defined some exceptions to SIP's protection in the rootless.conf file, and those exceptions are marked with asterixes. These exemptions from SIP's protection mean that it is possible to add, remove or change files and directories within those locations.

Among those exceptions are the following:

/System/Library/User Template - where OS X stores the template
directories it uses when creating home folders for new accounts.
/usr/libexec/cups - where OS X stores printer configuration
information

Apple considers this file theirs and that any third parties' changes to it will be overwritten by Apple.

To see which files have been protected by SIP, use the ls command with dash capital O in Terminal:

ls -O

SIP-protected files will be labeled as restricted.

One important think to know is that even if a symlink is protected by SIP, that does not necessarily mean that the directory they're linking to is being protected by SIP. At the root level of an OS X El Capitan boot drive, there are several SIP-protected symlinks pointing to directories stored inside the root-level directory named private.

However, when the contents of the private directory are examined, the directories which those symlinks point to are not protected by SIP and both they and their contents can be moved, edited or changed by processes using root privileges.

In addition to the list of SIP exceptions which Apple has set in rootless.conf, there is a second list of SIP exceptions. This list includes a number of directories and application names for third-party products. Similar to rootless.conf, this exclusion list is Apple's and any third parties' changes to it will be overwritten by Apple.

/System/Library/Sandbox/Compatibility.bundle/Contents/Resources/paths

Runtime protection

SIP's protections are not limited to protecting the system from filesystem changes. There are also system calls which are now restricted in their functionality.

task_for_pid() / processor_set_tasks() fail with EPERM
Mach special ports are reset on exec(2)
dyld environment variables are ignored
DTrace probes unavailable

However, SIP does not block inspection by the developer of their own applications while they're being developed. Xcode's tools will continue to allow apps to be inspected and debugged during the development process.

For more details on this, I'd recommend taking a look at Apple's developer documentation for SIP.

Kernel extension protection

SIP blocks installation of unsigned kernel extensions. In order to install a kernel extension on OS X El Capitan with SIP enabled, a kernel extension must:

Be signed with a Developer ID for Signing Kexts certificate
Install into /Library/Extensions

If installing an unsigned kernel extension, SIP will need to be disabled first.

For more information on managing SIP, please take a look at the link below:

System Integrity Protection – Adding another layer to Apple’s security model


Show caller ID and number on incoming call on iPhone? I looked around quite a bit for an answer to this question but can't find one, so maybe I'm overlooking something obvious.

I recently starting paying my carrier for caller ID. This is great sometimes, but now when receiving calls only the caller ID name is displayed, not the caller's phone number. I can't find any setting to get the caller ID name to display along with the phone number before I answer an incoming call. This is especially difficult when the caller ID text is UNKNOWN CALLER or something similar since I can't tell if the number looks familiar before I answer.

All of this applies to receiving calls from people not in my contacts list.

Is there some way to make callers' phone numbers appear along with caller ID text when receiving incoming calls?

This is an iPhone 6 Plus with iOS 9.3.1 on T-Mobile (US) in case any of that is relevant.

Unknown caller generally means their number (caller id) is private


What can I do when my SSH session is stuck? Sometimes my ssh session in the terminal hangs. How can I exit the ssh session and reconnect?

Type ~. (i.e. tilde, period) at the beginning of a line. In other words, press Enter, then ~, then .. (In some languages, you may need to press Shift or Alt to enter the ~ character.)

Generally speaking, the ~ character is an escape character in an SSH session when you type it at the beginning of a line. Type Enter then ~? to see the list of escape commands. The most common ones are

~. to terminate the connection
~^Z (press ~ then Ctrl+Z) to suspend the connection and type a command locally (run the command fg to return to the SSH session)

If you want a tilde at the beginning of a line, press ~ twice.

For me, working with Terminal in macOS Mojave 10.14.6 the only solution was to enter ~ followed by Ctrl-Z as described in this answer: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/175670/136875


Difference between US QWERTY and International QWERTY Apple keyboards? What exactly is the difference between US QWERTY and International QWERTY Apple keyboards?

I’m talking about the hardware keyboards specifically, not about keyboard layouts (in System Settings).

The most important differences are the size and position of the Enter/Return, and a few differences in the layout. The ~ key and the \ key have an entirely different position on both keyboards. Also, the US keyboard has no € label (although it can be entered: Alt+Shift+2).

The International keyboard (‘keyboard type’ = ISO) also has one more key than the US keyboard (‘keyboard type’ = ANSI).  Some Apple keyboard layouts use that key for essential characters, and this can cause problems for users with only the US keyboard.

Below is a high-quality visual comparison.

US QWERTY Apple keyboard:

EN International Apple keyboard:

It doesn't have the alternate "upper" characters of the number keys, i.e. the pound sign.


Crawl live website and do a text/code search? I need a Mac app that can crawl a live website and do a text search (and, as a bonus, a source code search) and report the results.

Surely something like this exists. Help!

When I needed to do this I used AppleScript to feed the text to BBEdit which has a full POSIX regex and excellent AppleScript support. You can probably do it with Automator as well and simply use due shellscript to pipe the text through your regex.


iPhone backup or sync issue "unknown error occurred (-50)" I recently switched from iCloud backup to backing up to my computer since the iOS 8 update seems to have doubled the size of my backup and it no longer fits on iCloud.

When backing up to my computer by pushing "Back Up Now" in iTunes, I get an error message:

  The iPhone 'X' cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (-50)

The last backup time does change, and it isn't saying that the backup failed, but it is odd that I get that error every time.

I am telling it to not backup any of the apps, because I don't want all that dead space on my laptop. The error seems to happen after the backup and when the sync process changes to "Transferring purchases from X"

I searched around and wasn't able to find a satisfying definition of error -50 does anyone know what it is?

I got this error just now. My Mac mini was connected to my LAN via WiFi and also via Ethernet. That was working ok, but I was trying to get the phone to sync via Wifi (still can't get that working).

Anyway, I pulled out the Ethernet cable. Plugged the phone in via USB and when I clicked Sync I got the (-50) error you describe.

My solution was to exit iTunes, and then launch it again. This was enough to get the phone syncing with no error.

I just restarted my iTunes and it fixed the issue.


How does my iMac know my location in the maps app, given that I use a VPN that has my IP about 200 miles from where my address is? I have an iMac (Mid 2011, if it matters) and I just installed Mavericks.

When I launch the Maps app, it knows PRECISELY where I am, which I could certainly understand if it was using IP geolocation.  The catch is, I'm on a VPN connection, with the exit about 200 miles from my actual location.

If I use any of the IP geolocation websites, it shows my location at that VPN exit node, not where I actually am.

So, how DOES my computer know where it is?

Technically - the process is called trilateration and operates by cross checking all BSSID - the unique identifier / MAC address for each wireless base station that your Mac can detect while it listens periodically or is actively searching to join a WiFi channel.

How does Maps on Mac OS determine the computer's location

You can run this scan manually by running the Wireless Diagnostic app which is located in /system/Library/CoreServices/Applications on Mavericks.

As long as your hardware is within range of one hot spot that has been geolocated in Apple's database of hotspots, the location should be within one football field of the location of the hotspot.

With three or more measurements - and relative signal strength of the various hot spot radio signals - the program might be able to make a more accurate estimate of your location.

You can also run this scan from the command line using the airport binary that is squirreled away in

mac:bin mike$ airport --scan
                            SSID BSSID             RSSI CHANNEL HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group)
                     na ala hele 00:26:36:9c:32:23 -59  2       Y  US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)
                     na ala hele 00:26:bb:79:23:1f -59  2       Y  US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)
                fast na ala hele 00:26:bb:79:23:20 -74  149,+1  Y  US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)
mac:bin mike$ airport --getinfo
     agrCtlRSSI: -75
     agrExtRSSI: 0
    agrCtlNoise: -86
    agrExtNoise: 0
          state: running
        op mode: station
     lastTxRate: 81
        maxRate: 300
lastAssocStatus: 0
    802.11 auth: open
      link auth: wpa2-psk
          BSSID: 00:26:bb:79:23:20
           SSID: fast na ala hele
            MCS: 4
        channel: 149,1
mac:bin mike$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/airport
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  89 Sep 13 11:40 /usr/local/bin/airport -> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport

The iPhone 5S also includes a GPS chip. Your IP address is only one of the methods the phone can use to determine your location - others being triangulation of wireless base stations and cell phone towers.


Cannot read external hard drive after installing Linux? Please help. I wanted to install linux so I follow this guide: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-mac-osx
I used my external hard drive to do this but then after I finished everything, when I plugged in my external hard drive I get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" and I cannot see my external hard drive in Finder, but I could see it in the Disk Utility. Does this mean all my data was erased? How do I get my external hard drive back? Thank you.

Well, if you had data already on the drive, it's gone. You could use a data recover, or ship it off somewhere. But, I'll just go into formatting the drive.

A. Sorta. Generally Linux uses a diffrent type of format for drives (ext4, and a couple others) so it could be that it did work, and your Mac just can't read it.
B. If it really did get messed up (you can't boot it into it) then :

Go to Disk Utility.
Click on your drive.
Click on the "Erase" tab.
If you'd like to, enter a name for the drive. Or, just keep it as Untiled if you'd like to try Linux again.
Select a format type, if you'd like to. Fat works best for cross-device compatibility.
Click the "Erase" button.
Get some coffee, or water, depending on the size of your drive.

"UNetbootin for Mac OS X can be used to automate the process of extracting the Ubuntu ISO file to USB, and making the USB drive bootable. The resulting USB drive, however, can be booted on PCs only. If attempting to make a USB drive that can be booted from a Mac, follow the instructions below."
- Ubuntu.com website


formatting external drive multiplatform compatible filesystem from macOS High Sierra I have a 160GB external hard drive connected via USB I pulled it from a windows pc to MacBook running MacOS High Sierra, I want to format the hard drive to a file system that should work with Windows, MacOS and Linux operating system.

The hard drive is currently NTFS formatted, into 3 partition which I want to get rid of and just keep single partition.

I am just going to backup my media , doc, zips and tars

Any Help will be greatly appreciated.

Are there any data on the 160GB external? If yes back them up.
Then format the drive in Exfat.


iPhone 7 Frozen Can't turn off or Reset My iPhone 7 just frozen right after the Passcode was entered. So basically it's frozen on the home screen right before the apps animates / slides in on the home screen.

I've tried holding the sleep / wake button + home button down with no luck. Nothing happens. I'm able to slide down the notification center and type and search in the box but then I try to open an app nothing happens.

If I press and hold to activate Siri, she appears for a second then turns off as if I pressed the home button again.

I've tried connecting the iPhone to a Mac but as it's Passcode enabled it tells me to unlock it and then replug it which I'm not able to do.

Any idea on how I can move forward?
I could wait for the battery to drain but since it's at 91% it will take a while and I was hoping for a quicker fix.

To force shutdown the iPhone 7 you need to hold volume down button and the sleep/wake button.

I made a Quick Video Guide on  How My Iphone 7 will not Turn off! FIXED!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI6kxsy6vM8


Drawing glove for iPad I'd really like to draw more on my iPad but I like to rest my hand on the screen doing so, which registers as a stroke along with the pen.

I've been looking around for a proper gadget for this problem, some kind of drawing glove for the iPad, but haven't found any.

I tried a couple of gloves myself but they're either too thick (clumsy) or too thin (hand registers with screen).

Anyone here drawing frequently on the iPad with a good DIY glove suggestion or link to a product?

From a FAQ of Smudge Guard:

  Unfortunately, the current SG gloves are not compatible with the iPad
  at all. The SG glove does not prevent detection on the iPad. :(

  However, please note that recently, two other customers of mine bought
  the SG glove and tested it while sketching on the Autodesk Sketchbook
  Pro. They said it did not prevent accidental strokes with their palm
  because the material/fabric was not thick enough. But cleverly, my two
  other customers then tried slipping in a microfiber cloth, (folded in
  half) into the side of the glove. The microfiber they used, were those
  little rectangular shaped cloths that are made to clean eyeglasses.
  They inserted it into the glove (where the edge of the hand is) and
  they said it worked! The iPad didn't detect the side of their hand.

There is also an info they started working on a fully-iPad compatible glove. Microfiber option could work with any thin glove, perhaps.

Take a regular garden glove and cut off the tips of the fingers, and sew extra fabric to the palms.


How to take screenshot from iPhone using command line I'm used to taking screenshots from android devices using the adb command line. Is there a way to do the same with the iphone?

Tha's very easy
1. Choose the screen from that you want to make a Screenshot
2. Pressing the home and the sleep/wake buttons together


iPhone Simulator on Macbook is showing question Mark iPhone Simulator on Macbook is showing question Mark. I am not able to launch the iPhone Simulator. I have my app deployed on the simulator.

How to fix the iPhone Simulator?

Try to open it from /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app


Should I expect restoring Yosemite from a Time Machine backup to take forever? El Capitan was a disaster for Office Mac 2011, specifically Outlook. The recent Microsoft update resolved the problem with Outlook crashing, but it didn't fix the problem I had where email sent to me was disappearing into the ether.

After conversations with both Apple and Microsoft support, neither who had a resolution, the final advice was to restore to the previous OSX, Yosemite. I used Command +R to restore from a Time Machine image and after 6 hours with the startup bar stuck halfway, I stopped it and came back in to check the disk and it's OK. So I started the restore again, and it back at the same halfway point and has been there for 6 hours and counting. Should I ride it out? How long should this take? I'm running on a 2014 MacBook Pro. Any reassurance or advice is appreciated!

First things first, make sure you backup before all of this:

When you restore from a backup you are not restoring to a previous version of OS X, you'll need to backup, erase the disk, reinstall with Yosemite and apply your backup. If you need help with this please comment this answer, I'll give all the detail needed

Tiferrei


Espresso Libre theme for MacVim? I recently changed editors from TextMate to MacVim. Thanks in part to vimtutor, things are going pretty well. But I miss the Espresso Libre color scheme:

Is there a place where I can get Espresso Libre as a MacVim theme?

If you have the TextMate theme file, you can use this online converter to spit out a (Mac)Vim theme file for you: http://coloration.sickill.net/

It should do a pretty good job of converting it for you, as it did for the ones I've tried.

This what you're looking for? http://eclipsecolorthemes.org/?view=theme&id=45


Using python 3 when the default is python 2.7 I installed python3 with homebrew and can access it with python3 command in terminal.

I'm installing a command line app that needs python3. When I try to use it it says:

  Python 3.3+ required

When I do python --version it reports python 2.7.

How can I get the app to use python3?

OK, so if you already have python 3.3 or more, then:

Open the script in an text editor(TextEdit, vim, etc.)
Replace all python with python3
Save and exit

... or just do like @aircraft said, alias it if nothing else uses py2.

If there is no other application to use the python2.7, you can use alias python to python3:

In the ~/.bashrc:

add the alias python=python3


How to gracefully import CSV files into Numbers.app v3? I have a process, which has worked faithfully for years in Numbers '09, whereby I download my Bank account data in CSV format, then drag that data directly into my Numbers sheet (after creating an appropriate number of blank rows).

This no longer works, and I can't find an option to import csv! A help search within numbers for 'csv' returns a single result which describes exporting.

I've tried the old method, no dice.  Also, the menu option: Insert > Choose… doesn't permit .csv to be selected.

At the moment, my workaround is:

drag the CSV onto the Numbers dock or task-switcher icon to create a temp sheet
select and copy the content
paste-and-match-format into my desired location
close don't save the temp file

Doe anyone know a better way? A hack or hidden flag I can toggle to get the old functionality back?

So the Apple thread recommended changing the txt to csv. This didn't work, my file was already csv, properly formated etc. No, changing to txt did the trick.
I'm finding it harder and harder to recommend switching from Microsoft to Apple. This sort thing just shouldn't be happening.

Import the csv file into Excel.  Then "copy"  the entries and "paste" into Numbers.

But it is shocking that Numbers cannot import an industry-standard csv file.  Even more shocking when one remembers that we used to be able to.


“You don't have permission to save files in the location where screen shots are stored” Every time I try and take a screenshot this appears ^. I've tried looking for the location of my saved screenshots typing in commands into the terminal and  my Desktop folder is unlocked (in Get Info).

This is what was on my terminal:

I typed: defaults read com.apple.screencapture location

Result: The domain/default pair of (com.apple.screencapture, location) does not exist

I typed: defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop

Result: Could not write domain com.apple.screencapture; exiting

Please help!

grep "truncating history files" /etc/* 2> /dev/null
/etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal:     echo -n 'truncating history files...'


Alternative for Notepad++? I really love Notepad++ and I haven't found an alternative for it yet. TextMate and TextWrangler aren't quite there yet. Specifically,  two things that I want that are not in TextMate:

variable highlighting
bracket highlighting

Can you suggest an alternative editor for OS X?

It's not clear from your question what exactly you're missing -- I use Notepad++ on the PC and find both TextMate and TextWrangler to be reasonable replacements -- but you'll likely appreciate either TextWrangler's big brother BBEdit 9 or, if you can put up with its alpha nature, Sublime Text 2.

If you use java(not java script) there is something called eclipse. It has a built in compiler. A Couple tutorial and you will have mastered it!


How can I create or recreate a Lion recovery partition? For whatever reason, one of our macs didn't make a recovery partition when it upgraded to Lion.

Is it possible to add a recovery partition after the fact?

To be clear - on a normal mac, the recovery partition is hidden in both the Startup Disk system preference and the Disk Utility. You can only see it from the command line with a direct command, diskutil list or enabling the debug menu in Disk Utility. It also shows up if you boot with the option key held or if you successfully boot to recovery with Command-R a.k.a. ⌘+R during boot.

Warning - this question and answer ONLY APPLY to 10.7.x Lion - using the Lion installer to recreate recovery on newer OS can and will cause problems due to drivers not being present for newer OS and hardware.

First, open a Terminal.

Status before:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
  #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
  0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *128.0 GB   disk0
  1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
  2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            127.8 GB   disk0s2

Get Lion Recovery Update v1.0 (431.91 MB)

Mount RecoveryHDUpdate.dmg

$ hdiutil attach ~/Downloads/RecoveryHDUpdate.dmg

Extract data from RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

$ pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Recovery\ HD\ Update/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg ~/Desktop/RHD

Mount RecoveryHDMeta.dmg (in the RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg package)

$ hdiutil attach ~/Desktop/RHD/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg/RecoveryHDMeta.dmg

Run tool that will finally resize current partition and create recovery

$ ~/Desktop/RHD/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg/Scripts/Tools/dmtest ensureRecoveryPartition / /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update/BaseSystem.dmg 0 0 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update/BaseSystem.chunklist
Creating recovery partition: finished

Status after:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
  #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
  0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *128.0 GB   disk0
  1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
  2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            127.2 GB   disk0s2
  3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

Are you sure it's not there? The recovery partition doesn't show up in disk utility, to view it you have to reboot and press option (alt) to get a list or drives you can boot from and you should have one called Recovery HD or if you want to access it directly just press Command-R at startup.


Safe to delete old "Macintosh HD - Data" partition? I did a clean install of MacOs today, and when choosing where to install it chose "Macintosh HD". It now seems there is a new "Macintosh HD - Data" partition, where MacOS currently references, as well as my old "Macintosh HD - Data" with all my data still there.
Assuming I don't need any of the data on it, is it safe to delete the old -Data partition?
EDIT:
diskutil list returns the following:
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         371.0 GB   disk0s2
3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                128.0 GB   disk0s3
4:           Windows Recovery                         920.6 MB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +371.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     269.1 GB   disk1s1
2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 634.7 MB   disk1s2
3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.2 GB     disk1s3
4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4
5:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     42.1 GB    disk1s5
6:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            15.1 GB    disk1s7
7:              APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 15.1 GB    disk1s7s1

diskutil apfs listVolumeGroups returns the following:
APFS Container (1 found)
|
+-- Container disk1 9A012B72-C05A-43FB-9A22-F7DC25CC2E05
    |
    +-> Volume Group 94245471-6F9F-3BB6-A6B7-37F3B9A771D5
    |   =================================================
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s1 (Data)
    |   Name:                      Macintosh HD - Data
    |   Volume UUID:               94245471-6F9F-3BB6-A6B7-37F3B9A771D5
    |   Capacity Consumed:         269121105920 B (269.1 GB)
    |
    +-> Volume Group A7914E12-F1B5-415F-A537-6942D294B6E8
        =================================================
        APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s5 (Data)
        Name:                      Macintosh HD - Data
        Volume UUID:               A7914E12-F1B5-415F-A537-6942D294B6E8
        Capacity Consumed:         42299822080 B (42.3 GB)
        -------------------------------------------------
        APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s7 (System)
        Name:                      Macintosh HD
        Volume UUID:               5ABDE43A-2F43-414F-8BCE-1AA92D42D887
        Capacity Consumed:         15050797056 B (15.1 GB)

It’s important to be certain that you’re deleting the correct data volume since they’re named identically:

In Terminal run the following command: diskutil apfs listVolumeGroups.
Find the volume group that contains both a System and a Data disk. That’s the one you’re going to keep.
The remaining volume group, which only has a Data disk, will be erased. Verify its name (“Macintosh HD - Data”). Note its device node (it will look like disk8s9 except the 8 and 9 will be different). Be sure to be VERY careful about writing this node down exactly.
Run the following: sudo diskutil apfs deleteVolume diskXsY, replacing the X and Y with the actual device node from Step 3. Again, be very careful with your typing here.

The Data partition is where the user-files are. You will not be able to get rid of the partition. You can delete the files if you want, but it will delete your preferences, etc.


Why does Microsoft Word need to allow incoming network connections? When I turn on the Mac firewall I get prompted to allow the MS office apps (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) to accept incoming connections. Why is this, and is it safe to allow it ?

I'm running Mac OS 10.7.2

I can't speak for Office 2011 because it requires you to activate your serial number with Microsoft, but in Office 2008, Office 2004 and Offive v.X, the incoming network connection is part of Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts.  Since each copy of Office is activated with a unique product key, Office products open an incoming network connection and listen for connections from other instances of Microsoft Office on the network.  When connections are established, the two instances of Office will trade product keys and make sure they are not the same.  If they are the same, then one user is forced to close their copy of Office.

I recommend instructing your firewall NOT to allow Office to accept inbound network connections.

Here's a link to Macworld that speaks about this 'feature':

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20020406142423494

I would add, that a lot of the Ms-Office documentation is online. It might has something to do with that.


Bootable Windows 7 USB won't boot I have used Boot Camp to create a bootable usb of Windows 7. But when I hold Option to select the drive all I get is my Mac OS and the restore drive or whatever it is.

Shouldn't Boot Camp create the USB to be bootable? Am I doing something wrong?

There is an alternative method to

create a bootable USB of Windows 7 and
boot from it

Assuming that you have the ISO handy (if you don't, there's Digital River links here), download Unetbootin.

Unetbootin allows you to create bootable USB drives from many Linux distributions and also ISO images. (note that Unetbootin requires admin privileges) The following image demonstrates how to manually select the ISO image. Click the "..." button to browse for your image.

To boot from your USB drive, I recommend rEFIt.  I use it myself to boot from an Ubuntu partition on my external hard drive that I use as a Time Machine on another partition.  It is useful for recognizing operating systems installed on your computer and devices connected to your computer (and their partitions).  I recommend simply burning rEFIt to a CD/DVD to boot to the Windows 7 install USB. Having had trouble trying to install it to the Mac itself (without the DVD), I usually boot to the rEFIt DVD, and continue to boot to my choice of operating system.

(boot to a rEFIt DVD by holding down the C key [or the option key, as you stated] after you hear the chime of the startup)

I know for a fact that Unetbootin works for creating bootable Windows  install USB's (I've run them before on PC's).  I will test booting from rEFIt and update this answer when I have.

For a drive to be Bootable by Intel Macs, it must be formatted with the GUID Partition scheme.

See:
Starting from an external USB storage device (Intel-based Macs)
Partition a disk


Is it possible to rotate images in Preview in degrees other than 90? I want to rotate an image in preview but I only need to move it a few degrees.  Is this possible?  Or can you only rotate 90 degrees?

If you're not averse to using the command line, you can use the sips command to rotate images. For example…

sips -r 23 --padColor FFFFFF image.jpg

…will rotate image.jpg 23 degrees clockwise and "fill in" the empty space with white. (If you rotate PNGs, the alpha channel should be retained.)

Worth reading the man page for sips as it can do other useful stuff.

You can do this straight from Preview if you're on a MacBook. Just put two fingers on the touch pad, rotate, and viola. Unfortunately, there is no way to input exactly the degrees to which you want to rotate, but this at least allows for an approximation.

Hope that helps.


"iCloud Download" column in iTunes keeps reappearing I updated my iTunes on my computer, and one of the things I noticed was that the "iCloud Download" column had now appeared on top of my music library. Now, I don't use iCloud for my music, so I right-clicked the bar and turned it off.

A few minutes later, the iCloud Download tab was back again. I could've sworn I'd turned it off, but just to be sure I right-clicked and turned it off again.

A few more minutes pass, and the iCloud Download tab is right there back again. Every time I turn it off, it just keeps reappearing sooner or later. I have Automatic Downloads for music checked off, so I don't know what is causing this.

This is very annoying. Does anyone know how to fix this?

I found an answer that doesn't require you stay logged out of the iTunes store (found here, whose poster found it here).

In iTunes, press command1 or click Menubar/View/Music.
Click the Playlist button from the center-top row of the the iTunes window, below the large Apple logo.
Click Menubar/View/Only Music Available Offline.
Repeat for all other media types: command2 or Menubar/View/Movies, command3 or Menubar/View/TV Shows, etc.
Return to Music Playlists, and the iCloud Download column is gone, no matter whether you're signed into the Store, no matter whether you've enabled/disabled Apple brand subscription-based streaming, and even after quit/relaunch of iTunes.

I just removed it. And you must deactivate it from music, movies and TV for it to remove it


How to change the send/receive sound on Messages in macOS Mojave I'm trying to change the sound Messages makes when sending out an message along with receiving one.

I've done some tinkering based on info from similiar questions on this site. For example:
Where are the alert tone audio files located in OS X?

Can someone tell me where files are located for me to make changes. I know the receive sound is called note.m4r. But I want to change the sending out "wooooo" sound too.

How can I go about doing this?

iMessage sounds are located at

/Applications/Messages.app/Contents/Resources/Received Message.aiff
/Applications/Messages.app/Contents/Resources/Sent Message.aiff
/Applications/Messages.app/Contents/Resources/Default.aiff

However, changing these files do not seem to affect the sound.

Perhaps you can do it with this:
In Mail->Preferences->Rules (the rules menu of Mail), there is a possibility have sounds in setting a rule.


Help with changing user home folder file name My computer was restored from my ex-wife's laptop 3 years ago. Her maiden name pops up as the user-folder name on all my files, and it's been wearing on me for a long time.

I used this Q&A to try to change it, but when i get to tubedogg's 5th step, I can't figure out a way to change the folder name, even after double-clicking/going to the file on the root-user account.

Please helllp!!

"
Change Users Home Directory
Q:
I have created a new user but the new user's home directory has the old users path. How can I update my new user's home directory so that the terminal opens to this directory and all software considers this new directory my home directory? I'm using OS x 10.8.4.

A:

Apple's support site provides steps to change the "account name" (that is, the name of the home folder for a particular user).

1-    Enable the root user (using these steps).
2-     Log in as root.
3-    Navigate to the /Users folder.
4-    Select the Home folder with the short name you want to change, and rename it just like you would rename any folder. Keep in mind that the shortname must be all lowercase, with no spaces, and only contain letters.
    Use the Users & Groups pane (Accounts pane in Mac OS X v10.6.8 or earlier) in System Preferences to create a new user with the Account name or Short Name that you used in the previous step.
    Click OK when "A folder in the Users folder already has the name 'account name'. Would you like to use that folder as the Home folder for this user account?" appears. Note: This will correct the ownership of all files in the Home folder, and avoid permissions issues with the contents.
    Choose Log Out from the Apple menu. Log in as the newly created user. You should be able to access all of your original files (on the desktop, in Documents, and in the other folders of this Home).
    After verifying that your data is as expected, you can delete the original user account via the Users & Groups pane (Accounts pane in Mac OS X v10.6.8 or earlier).
    Disable the root user (using these steps)."

Don't try to swap the short name out. Do make a back up before you attempt any user folder rename. Consider restoring a file or two from the backup if you've never done that.

Instead, make a new user that's a temporary admin.

Use that user to delete the old account, keep the home directory.
Then rename the old /Users/whatever folder to be what you want for the short name.
Then make a new user account with that exact same short name.

You'll have the correct permissions and user at that point and can delete the temporary admin or keep it around if you don't mind.

Honestly to avoid funny issues with the OS and any number of third party apps I'd rather create a new account and move the relevant data over from her old account.

Otherwise there'll always be references to the old user name in app's preferences, documents and other files...


IiPhone 5s won't appear in iTunes (appears in my computer) after iTunes update I'm running Windows 10, and I recently updated my iTunes to the most recent version. Ever since then, my iPhone doesn't appear in iTunes. However, it still appears in my computer under "Apple iPhone" (rather than the actual name that I named it). Also, everytime I plug it in, it continually asks me to allow the computer to access my photos and videos.

Any ideas to how I can get iTunes to recognise it? (I really want to avoid doing a full reinstall of iTunes though.)

I hope one of these will help you:

Have you given it permission to access photos and videos?
Try open apple software update on your PC, and check for another update.
Try restart your iPhone.
Try restart your PC.
Try with another lightning cable.

maybe you will need to... because there might be a bug in the new version of itunes... so its better to uninstall and reinstall it again... i hope it recognises


"This copy of the Install OSX Mavericks..." error message via USB boot I have an old Leopard MBP and a 2013 Mavericks iMac.

I want to install Mavericks on the Leopard MBP, but had no success since.

Here's what I did.

I downloaded Mavericks from the MAS on the iMac
I formatted an 8GB USB drive (naming it Untitled) through Disk Utility
I ran this in the terminal: sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/ --nointeraction
The creation of the bootable USB was successful, so I booted the MBP using the newly created USB drive
I formatted the MBP internal HDD via the Disk Utility on the Mavericks drive
I ran the Mavericks drive installer

Near the end of the Mavericks installation, I ran into the "This copy of the Install OS X Mavericks application can't be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading." error.

I re-downloaded Mavericks from the MAS and tried again; same error.

What should I do now?

Check that the date is correct.  This is an error that can be received if your date is set utterly incorrectly, typically due to a flat battery prior to install and not being able to connect to an NTP server to correct.

For me, the solution was to just change USB drive.


OSX Yosemite full screen menu bar Is there a way to always keep the menu bar visible in full screen mode?

When developing I like having certain applications take up the full screen but I find the delay in bringing down the menu bar slightly annoying. I'd like the menu bar to be always visible. I followed the answers from this post but changing the LSUIPresentationMode did not do anything.

If anyone has a working solution I'd be happy to try it out!

Thanks!

Like @james_fuller said auto-hiding the doc and maximizing the app window (use the alt key when clicking maximize) will have the requested result. Some apps (Google Chrome) have custom behavior for the maximize button so Shiftit.app can be used to maximize those apps with a simple key command.

Press shift & alt/option and click on the green maximize button.