Why are Mac requirements for games so much higher than Windows? This just blew my mind. Take for example Medieval II: Total war.

Requirement for windows: 512 Mb RAM + 11 Gb free space on hard disk + 128 Mb GPU

Requirement for mac: 4 Gb RAM + 32 Gb of free space on hard disk + 256 / 512 MB GPU

How come the requirements are so much higher? In particular the size of the games, it's more than double the Windows version! What is going on?

The problem is you are looking at a game, Medieval II: Total War, that was released for Windows in November 2006 (last patch released in 2007 as far as I can tell) and for OS X in January 2016. The Windows version runs on 2000/XP (Windows 2000 was originally released in 1999), whereas the minimum for Mac is OS X 10.10.5, which came out a bit under two years ago. In other words, the game was ported to Mac very recently and therefore requires a modern computer to run it. I am not sure why the disk storage requirement is so much higher; I suspect it's either a typo or the assets in the Mac version have been significantly enhanced.

If you compare Total War: Rome 2, another game in the same series but one that was only released a year apart on the two OSes, you will see system requirements that are much more similar. In fact, the Mac version actually requires less hard drive space. It does require more RAM, but I would guess that's more to do with the underlying OS than anything else.

I looked at some of the games in my Steam library to further confirm that system requirements are not inherently higher for games on Mac. SOMA actually has identical requirements for the two OSes. Marvel Heroes 2016 is very similar for both. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition has slightly higher requirements for Mac than Windows, especially in RAM, but again it runs on much older Windows OSes (XP) than OS X (10.8 minimum). Team Fortress 2 has nearly identical requirements.

Ultimately it comes down to several things: release time frame (again, comparing a game that came out in 2006 with a port that came out in 2016 is not going to yield similar results); the skill set of the developers involved (a studio who may not be as familiar with Mac may not be able to optimize a game as well as one who is, e.g. Aspyr); whether the game is wrapped in an emulation layer (such as Cider or Wine, which some large publishers do as an alternative to having a company like Aspyr port the game to a native Mac version); and ultimately, how much the publisher cares about the quality of the game and spends time (and of course money) optimizing the game for the target platform.

There are two types of games for OSX: native apps (games that are actually made for mac, these run great) and ports from windows. The second kind use special tools to make the games originally written for windows run on mac. One example is Aspyr (https://www.aspyr.com). The Problem with these ports is, that the game was never designed to run on mac and so does run very poorly after the port. This results in much higher system requirements.
Even worse, some developers just stick their game into an emulator like wine, which is pretty unstable and messy. Wine can be a good way to run games on mac in some cased and under certain circumstances, so maybe your desired game fits these criterias. Since Wine is free you might want to have a look at: https://appdb.winehq.org for your game and see how it performs.


How to get a mac to wait longer for external disk to wake up upon resuming from sleep? My Mac has an external disk attached, and I often get "disk not ejected properly" warnings after resuming the computer from sleep. These warnings appear only when the disk has spun down during the sleep, and it seems that they are related to how long OS X is willing to wait for a device to become present before declaring it disconnected after resuming from sleep.

It would be nice to not get the annoying pop-up upon resuming from sleep, and the messages about journal replay in kernel.log look slightly alarming, even though it is unlikely that anything wouldn't have gotten written to disk while the computer was idle before going to sleep. Can this wait time be increased somehow?

There are various google results for ejecting volumes on sleep, which should solve this problem.

First, write yourself a shell script to eject the volume.  You could avoid setuid bits by using apple script.

#!/usr/bin/osascript
tell application "Finder" to eject (disks where name = "VOLUME")

Next, install the SleepWatcher tool and configure ~/.sleep or /etc/rc.sleep appropriately.

There are similar directions for remounting the disk on wake in that Mac OS X Hints entry, but maybe you don't need that.

Have you tried this:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin -bool true

This should stop the disk demounting when you log out, whether or not it also works for sleep I don't know (and cannot test right now).


How does the iPhone 7 plus dual camera work? I just bought the iPhone 7 plus and of course the first thing i tried was to take some pictures with the new dual camera.

I was then wondering how the transition between the two cameras works since while zooming it looks as smooth as the standard digital zooming on any other phone.

So i tried to put a finger in front of only one camera to check when the transition occurs. If you put the finger in front of the right camera (watching the screen) you see your finger no matter how much you zoom, if you put your finger in front on the left camera then you will never see the finger.

At this point i thought that maybe the preview was taken only from the right camera and then when you actually take the picture it gets the image from one or the other according to how much you zoom.

But the picture that i took gave the same result that the preview did, finger on the right camera -> you get a black picture, finger on the left camera -> you get the image without the finger, no matter how much you zoom.

How does it work?
Is it an issue with my iPhone or do i just not get something?

Thank you everybody!

EDIT:
I tried both pinching the screen to zoom and using the "1x" button to activate the "2x" zoom, and i got the same result

You're probably just using the digital zoom and never switching cameras. You describe the zoom as "smooth" - this sounds like you're not switching cameras.

To switch between the cameras, press the "1x" circled button and it will show "2x". This is the secondary camera.

You can do digital zoom on either camera afterwards.

Low-light photos are so much better than they used to be, since the Camera app can combine data from both lenses, the optical image stabilization helps keep things steady, and the wide-angle lens’s f/1.8 aperture lets in a lot more light than the f/2.2 lens in the iPhone 6s,The new Portrait mode coming to iOS 10.1 is a great example of what the iPhone 7 Plus’s exclusive two-lens camera system can do. Since this mode is still in beta (both the feature itself, and iOS 10.1, are in beta as of this writing)


Exchange contacts do not appear in iCloud On my iPad and iPhone I have several email accounts: three Gmail and one Exchange account. I stopped using the Exchange account and tried to remove it from the iPhone, but also all my contacts were deleted. On the iPad the Exchange account is still configured and the contacts are still there.

Is there a way to transfer all contacts into iCloud and distribute it again on the iPhone (and my MacBook)?

From http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5058 :

  Data stored with iCloud will not interact with your Microsoft
  Exchange data, while likewise your Exchange data will not interact
  with iCloud data.

There's a $0.99 app that can transfer your Exchange contacts to iCloud in a matter of seconds.  It's called "Contact Mover & Account Sync."  You can read about it at:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contact-mover-account-sync/id582605968?mt=8


How to put iPhone 3G into DFU mode when power button doesn't work I'm trying to enter DFU mode in my Iphone 3G. And yes, i know how to get it into DFU, but the problem is that my power button doesn't work, so my question is, is there a way to get in to DFU mode through the computer?

iClarified has provided this post that might be of use to you. It explains how to put your iPhone in DFU mode without using the power or home button.

Whatever you mean to do, just be sure to read the post completely before doing so, as without a power button you won't be able to shutdown your iPhone to reboot it again. Unless you let it go completely flat - this would take a while.

Your problem is a bit complicated. Actually, we put iPhone into DFU mode via operating the  home button and power button.


How do I change geolocation of photos in the Photo app? The thing is, there is a bunch of photos I've taken that are referred at the wrong location.

For example: there is a picture of my dad that was taken at my home in Barueri, Brazil and the Photo app says that it was taken at Ar Riyad, Saudi Arabia

Lots of other photos are located in places like Africa and Western Asia, places that I've never been before.

Is there a way to correct it?

I do not know a way to edit the location of photos on the iPhone but with El Capitan you can now edit them in the Desktop Photo App:

select the one or more photos
press cmdI or use Window -> Info
check/enter and/or edit the location information under Location

Not sure if you already solved

Koredoko is what you are searching for

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/koredoko-exif-and-gps-viewer/id286765236?mt=8


Share Keyboard Shortcuts I have about over 100 keyboard shortcuts for my mac, and I want to transfer all those shortcuts to my second computer. Is there a way to do this easily?

The best bet is to change some shortcuts while observing the content of your Preferences folder sorted by modification date.

In my system (10.7.5 Lion) the relevant files are com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist, com.apple.universalaccess.plist and pbs.plist as well as probably somehow related plists like com.apple.systempreferences.plist/com.apple.ServicesMenu.Services.plist.

If both of your Macs have the same system/apps installed simply copy the files you found.

Unless this is included in a Time Machine backup (in which case you could restore it with Migration Assistant), then not easily.

See this answer and this answer.

  The shortcuts that can be set in System Preferences > Keyboard >
  Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts are stored in
  ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist and the property lists
  of applications (like ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist or
  ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.chess/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.chess.plist).

  The shortcuts for services are stored in
  ~/Library/Preferences/pbs.plist.


Process completed immediately after opening Terminal After I open Terminal in OS X:

Last login: Tue Oct 28 10:29:21 on ttys000 login(14773,0x7fff7572f300) malloc: * error for
object 0x7fd4bb715110: pointer being freed was not allocated * set a breakpoint in
malloc_error_break to debug

[Process completed]

I have no idea what I did or how to fix it.

Go to Preferences → General and set Shells open with to Command, and enter the following:

/bin/bash -x

Open a new shell and see what is being run, then remove the relevant lines from your profile files.

The following solved it for me:

Go to: Terminal > Preferences
Scroll down to: Shell
Change, /bin/bash to: /bin/sh


Is it possible to use an Apple gift card toward repairs? I have a gift card whose balance should just about exactly cover the cost of some repairs Apple is doing on my computer. Is it possible to spend a gift card on repairs? I assume so, but I cannot find any confirmation on Apple's website. Just wondered if anyone on here had any experience to confirm or disconfirm.

If the card can be used in an Apple retail store (i.e. not an iTunes gift card), then yes. Repairs are treated as an in-line item in their POS system. Any valid form of payment that could be used to pay for anything else in the store can be used to pay for repairs.

I called an Apple retail store to confirm this.

From the Apple Gift Card Page:

  The pressure's off. Now your friends and family can choose almost
  anything that Apple offers in its huge collection of Mac and iPod
  products at any Apple Store in the United States - online, by phone,
  and at an Apple Store near you. Just give an Apple Gift Card and the
  recipient can choose from qualifying products.

Clearly just for buying a subset of products, not for repairs.


How to sync my iTunes library to my iPhone while still using iCloud Music Library for Apple Music? Is it possible for me to keep iCloud Music Library turned on so I can actually use Apple Music (save tracks and playlists to the My Music playlist) while also maintaining the ability to sync any music I acquire the old-fashioned way (downloads, CDs, etc) and add to my iTunes library?

It's so damn annoying to have to turn on and off iCloud Music Library just to be able to sync music to my phone while using Apple Music.

Ok, I think there is a way to do this, but it is not my preferred method.

When you have iCloud Music Library turned on for your iPhone or iOS device, you will also need to make sure it is turned on for your iTunes library on the desktop. When you do so Apple automatically uploads your iTunes library to iCloud. Then, your iTunes library shows up on your iOS device. If you want to save those tracks locally, you must choose to do so within Apple Music on the device itself.

Basically, Apple has done away with the idea of syncing your music locally through a USB cable, you must do it over the air via your data connection or WiFi. Kind of stupid that it has to go through Apple's iCloud servers first and then back to your device...

Have you tried this? (Inside red square)

You can group your music inside a playlist and only select that playlist to sync from the Playlist on bottom.

I have not tried it yet because I have that Apple Music iCloud Library problem and can't save music offline.

Let me know if that helped you!


Move Calendar event to Reminders? I have some events on my Calendar that I would prefer to have listed in Reminders.  (They were added to the Calendar by TurboTax.)  Is there a simple way to move them from one app to another?  (I'm using Mac OS 10.11.6.)

This seems to work:

Open your calendar.
Click on the event you want to move to Reminders.
Copy the event (⌘ command+C).
In the Reminders app, click in a new event line.
Paste the event (⌘ command+V).

There are a couple things I noticed when testing this (on Mac OS Sierra, 10.12.6):

The title of the reminder matches the name of the calendar event, but it's followed by "Scheduled:".
If the calendar event contains any alerts prior to the time of the event, these alerts are not added to the reminder.  The reminder is only for the actual time of the event.

Sometimes looking for a way for the System to accomplish small things -  especially now with High Sierra having been trimmed of so many useful “small things” - it makes more sense to copy and paste your Calendar event title to a new Reminder, and fill in the details yourself.

Or search the web.

I find Apple Support very low on advice, mostly a repeat of uninformative Support pages. There are great utilities like Onyx and Cocktail which help with sensible system tweaks.


Boot Camp / macOS Mojave / 3 TB Fusion drive If I replace the current 3 TB hard drive with a compatible SSD drive, will this fix the issue with being able to load and run boot camp on my 2012 iMac?

If you see the alert 'Installation cannot proceed with Boot Camp configured'

Bootcamp isn't dependent on the type of drive that you use.

What matters is it's hardware compatability with the Windows version you want to run.


How to combine two images into one on a Mac? Say I have two photos (or any images), for example with the following dimensions:

+----------+       +----------+
|          |       |          |
|          |       |          |
|320 x 428 |  and  |320 x 428 |
|          |       |          |
|          |       |          |
+----------+       +----------+

I want to combine them into a single image, side by side. So the result should be

+----------------------+
|                      |
|                      |
|      640 x 428       |
|                      |
|                      |
+----------------------+

What's the simplest way to do this on a Mac? Is it possible with some default app like Preview, or would you recommend some 3rd party tool for the job?

Solution ✅

If I could, I'd accept these two answers:

If you want a GUI solution, use Preview
For a smooth command-line solution, use convert from ImageMagick

I often have to do this with images of plots of data.  I use the command line tools that come in the Imagemagick package; I think I installed it on my system with MacPorts. You could also choose to install with brew (brew install imagemagick).
The actual tool you want to use from Imagemagick is the convert tool.  If you have your two 320x428 images, say a.png and b.png, you can do
convert +append a.png b.png c.png

to create a new file, c.png, that has the a.png on the left and b.png on the right.  Alternatively, you append them vertically with -append (instead of +) and a.png will be on top of b.png.  With convert, you can do a ton of other things.  For example, you can switch to a different image format for the output
convert +append a.png b.jpg c.tif

This isn't a GUI application, but maybe some others might have a better solution.  Alternatively, you could put this in some sort of automator script.
2020-12-10：
I used it on 2020-12-10 and now the correct code is
convert +append a.png b.jpg +append c.tif

Actually, there is a much simpler way to combine two photos into one page (one pdf) on a Mac. Open a new powerpoint file, open the photos you want to join or save into one PDF, use the Crop command (Shift+Control+Command+4) to crop the images one by one and paste them in the powerpoint file. Adjust the size of photos and placement on the slide. Save the slide or file as a PDF. Simple.

However if you want to merge two photos into one (with one merging into the other) there are other apps out there which can do it for you.


OSX El Capitan - cannot make bootable usb stick with boot camp I meticulously followed this tutorial, and this worked for me in 2014. I have a 4GB usb stick plugged into the computer. It should be enough for windows 7, a partition which no longer boots and I am hoping to run startup repair on it from the install USB so I don't have to start over clean.

tutorial: http://tsentas.net/create-a-windows-7-or-later-version-install-disk-missing-on-el-capitan/

This is the screen I get after following this tutorial where the Info.plist file of bootcamp is modified to let the USB creation happen (same screen as before):

Has anyone encountered this issue?

If you find no option to select your external USB drive as an ISO target - are instead directed to install on your repartitioned hard drive immediately - open the info.plist and add your model identifier to the following:

<key>ExternalInstallOnlyModels</key>
<array>
    <string>MacBook8,1</string>
    <string>MacBook9,1</string>
    <string>MacBookAir7,1</string>
    <string>MacBookPro11,5</string>
</array>

I m just a dentist whom happens to be a geek ..I was lucky but i just copied the boot camp to the desktop  edited the info.plist on xcode then just rased the preusb... opened the bootcamp again and voila i had the create a  win7 usb option ..
Does this make anysens to you guys ?


Will a deactivated iPhone still receive iMessages and emails? I lost my iPhone, I say lost because I don't have it. I suspect someone I know of taking it to check up on me. I tried "Find my iPhone" but it said my phone was offline (off?) I never turn my phone off, and I was using it 5 minutes before I curiously found it missing. I called Verizon and told them to shut my service down. I checked to make sure this was done by calling my number.

Can my disconnected phone still recieve iMessages? Everything I have been told and read says yes! This is a nightmare! Is there a way to find out if this "person I suspect" really does have it? And is there anyway to stop the I messaging coming to that phone?

Also, does the person with my disconnected iPhone read my emails? In other words are my emails still going to the disconnected phone?

If your phone gets close to any WiFi network it has been connected to before it will reconnect and receive whatever is pending (iMessages, Mails etc.). Depending on your Notification Center settings and/or the strength of your password (if any) the person holding the phone will then also be able to read them.

But

are you sure the phone is gone and not just laying somewhere you haven't been looking at?
you still can use Find My iPhone to erase everything on the phone (which will be executed if the phone goes online again)

Nobody can get your info from the iphone if you used a password


Top row of keyboard isn't working I just turned on my Macbook air this morning and now the top keys aren't doing anything (F1, F2, etc). I can't turn down my keyboard light or anything. I tried going to system preferences and checking "Use all F1, F2, etc keys.." option but I am still not able to do anything like turn down volume or anything. I am using OS X Yosemite Version 10.10.1 .

This happened to me a while back... First, try just holding down the power button for 10 seconds, to force the MacBook to shut down, and then reboot it normally. That sometimes works.

Failing that, you could try resetting the SMC:

Resetting the SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own

Note: Portable computers that have a battery you should not remove on your own include MacBook Pro (Early 2009) and later, all models of MacBook Air, and MacBook (Late 2009).

Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it
to the Mac if its not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option
keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.

Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.

Source: Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

Thanks I used Karabiner-Elements and it fixed the problem after trying all the usuals - standard settings/PRAM/SMC etc


Install automator service via command line I would like to automate my Mac installation flow for services. The following is my script:

#!/bin/sh
rm -rf ./tempWorkflows
mkdir tempWorkflows
for filename in ./*.workflow; do
    cp -R "$filename" ./tempWorkflows/"$filename"
done
for filename in ./tempWorkflows/*.workflow; do
    open $filename
done
rm -rf ./tempWorkflows

It basically copy all my *.workflow and open it. However, for open $filename, it prompts and asking for a confirmation:

Is there a way to add --no-prompt or similar flag for the open command?

EDIT:

I am using El Capitan 10.11.3

If Automator is closed then open Automator and select Application under Choose a type for your document, then click the Choose button. If it's already open the choose File > New and select Application under Choose a type for your document.

Add a Run Shell Script Action to it.

Copy and paste the shell code you presently have into the Run Shell Script Action.

Add the following lines of code after: open $filename

sleep 1
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to click button "Install" of window "Service Installer" of process "Automator"'
sleep 1
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to click button "Done" of window "Service Installer" of process "Automator"'

Note: You should also add an appropriate cd line above the rm -rf ./tempWorkflows line you presently have in your code, e.g. cd /some/directory/path where it's the pathname of the location your .workflow files are located for processing by your script.

Save the Automator Application as Install Automator Service.

Next:

Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility > Privacy

Click the Lock icon to make changes and type in your password, then click the Unlock button.

User the [+] to add the Install Automator Service or drag and drop the application bundle into the window.

This will now allow the Install Automator Service application to run your shell code and use the AppleScript code to click the Install button and subsequent Done button on the Service Installer dialog box in the process of installing your Services.

When you "Open With..." an Automator Service, the default app to open the file is Automator Installer.app.

This app offers to install the Service and moves the file to your system Services directory.

I'm guessing that if you instead open the file with Automator Runner.app it will run the Automator workflow and not offer to install the Service.

Change your open $filename to instead open the file with a specific application rather than the default.


How can stop or reduce music duplication in Itunes? I keep all of my music in a folder on my back up drive. I use Media player to edit and genre categorize the music. Then copy / transfer the folder to Itunes which converts the music to ACC format.

My problem is when I add a new song or album(s) to my master folder, Itunes wants to copy the whole folder again causing massive duplications and it wants to change my genre categorization on some songs.

It also sometimes takes songs in an album and separates them listing each separately. So instead of on e album listing 15 songs. I get 15  listings of the album with one song listed.

Open iTunes preferences and click advanced.

Uncheck the Copy line item...

You still have to clean up the old dupes, but any new imports will be left on the filesystem where you stored them and not copied or moved to where iTunes would like them to be stored.

You can try this article to prevent iTunes from copying files.


Why does my iPhone heat when charged and when in use My iPhone gets really hot when charging and sometimes when I use it. I thought it might do this because my iPhone is cracked and I've thought about getting the screen fixed but I'm not sure if that's the reason why it's hot. I have also stopped using, I haven't used it for a few weeks now but it still heats up when I charge it. What can I do to resolve this problem?

1. Bad Connection
In areas with poor or reduced connectivity, iPhone has to expend more time searching for and maintaining network connections. This in turn uses more energy which causes the battery to heat up.
Possible Solution
You can try turning Airplane Mode on and see if you have the same problem with heating up.  I also have an iPhone and I myself notice that it does not heat up if I am out in the open, but it heats up and drains the battery if I am in the basement of a large concrete building.
2. Case?
If you have a case for your iPhone, you should expect that it heats up. The case, while it does protect your phone, also blocks some air from coming out and consequently causes the hot air to be trapped inside the phone. This will cause your iPhone to heat up almost indefinitely.
Possible Solution
When you are charging your iPhone, take it out of its case. While this may be inconvenient, it will help.
3. CPU Usage
If your phone is heating up, you may have a lot of applications open. Also, if you were playing a lot of games, then you can expect an increase in CPU usage and temperature as well.
All of the listed items below can contribute to an increase in CPU Usage:

Games
Data Usage (Facebook, Emails)
Fetch/Push Data

Possible Solutions

Do a Network Connections Reset (Go to Settings => General => Reset => Reset Network Settings, then reboot (you will lose WiFi passwords)

Try disabling the following apps (in Settings => General => Restrictions): Multiplayer Games, Ping, App Store, iTunes Store. Then reboot.

4. Defect
If nothing else works, then it is also quite possible that your iPhone is defective and if this continues to occur as you have stated, I would take it to an Apple Store. They may be able to better diagnose the problem.
Links and Resources
MacRumours
Apple Discussion Board
Apple Discussion Board

Too much stuff in one time that's why I had to reset all my things and it works and it's all saved and even though my iphone is cracked when it's charging so it will work I promise


MacBook going into blank screen after Apple Logo I’ve been trying to turn on my MacBook Pro. It goes into a black screen while it’s trying to boot ( as the progress bar reaches 50% on the Apple Logo Screen).

I am able to boot into the recovery mode and I've run the FirstAid test for my hard disk. It didn’t find any issues with the device.

Tried to login into safe mode, after the Apple logo progress screen. It goes into a spinning circle screen and it gets stuck in a loop. I waited for 15 minutes but the screen kept going blank and into spinning circle.

I have a MacBook Pro 2015 Retina running 10.14

Update - I have even tried using "Reinstall OSX" option from the recovery menu. I went through with the whole downloading and installation process. But I still end up with the same issue after booting my MacBook. I am only able to access the recovery menu.

It's possible that something in the OS got corrupted. Boot into recovery mode (hold ⌘-R on boot for those who don't know) and select the option to Reinstall OSX. It won't touch your user files or applications; it just lays down a new copy of the OS, which will likely fix your issue. You may need to explicitly connect it to your wifi/ethernet to do this. Good luck!
Cheers,
-j

It happened when you are updating the MacBook?
If you are using non-compatible components in the mac, then maybe this will happened.


White iPhone 4 vs. black iPhone 4 Other than the color, what exactly are the difference between the black and the white iPhone 4?

There are two changes that I've read about, both related to the color change but not just that the color is different:

The rear camera positioning has been slightly modified to reduce the amount of light that leaks into the area; it's said to be recessed slightly deeper into the device, though other reports indicate a slightly different casing. Makes sense, since the black glass and plastic would absorb light that the white glass and plastic would let through, likely causing washed-out pictures (or the software adjusting the white balance incorrectly, losing details in lighter and/or darker areas of the image).
Reports also indicate that the proximity sensor has been modified. Though it's quite possible, if the iPhone uses a capacitive proximity sensor such a change shouldn't be necessary (if it uses an infrared proximity sensor then the same light change issue would require a change). It seems more likely that the change was made for the ambient light sensor which is right next to the proximity sensor, since the ambient light sensor would have light change differences as well.

Other than the the phones are identical. The new one is no faster, for example.

Its supposed to be identical, but 0.2mm thicker


How can I open port 80 so a non-root process can bind to it? I want to run a web server on my Mac as a non-root process. Normally only root processes can bind to port 80 (or to any port below 1024).

Can I open port 80 specifically so that non-root processes can listen on it?

This is difficult to do by design, and unless you have root access to your machine none of the following will work as they require root to setup the changes.  Once changed, though, userspace programs will have access without having root.
There are two common ways to accomplish this, and which you choose will depend on why you're trying to work around the restriction:
Point port 80 to another port, such as 8080
By reconfiguring your machine to pass all port 80 traffic to port 8080, or any port of your choosing, then you can allow user space servers to receive root privilege ports in the area they are given access to.
The process is straightforward:

Step 1: View current firewall rules.
sudo ipfw show

Step 2: Add port forwarding rule (80 to 8080)
sudo ipfw add 100 fwd 127.0.0.1,8080 tcp from any to any 80 in

If you want to remove your firewall rules run:
sudo ipfw flush

(source)
This is a temporary change, and will revert once you reboot, or flush as indicated int he last line.
You can make the change permanent, or you could add the command as a startup line prior to starting your server, which is probably safer from the standpoint of security.
Use Authbind
Authbind was designed specifically to allow one program access to lower level ports without giving it full root access.
There is a MacOSX port:
https://github.com/Castaglia/MacOSX-authbind
It may still be limited to IPv4 traffic, though, so you may have to do some additional investigation to find if it meets your needs

What you should be able to do is open port 80 on your router and point it to the local IP address of your web server. Then on your Mac, enable Web Sharing from the System Preferences>Sharing preference pane and point it to the directory of your choosing. This has worked for me in the past until switched over to 10.6 Server.


How do I make Mountain Lion read iMessage texts as they come in? On my MacBook Air in Lion with the iMessages beta I was able to set up iMessage to read all incoming messages automatically with text to speech.

I can't find how to turn that on with Mountain Lion.

I see how I can make it announce or I can select text to have it read out loud but I had it just automatically reading incoming messages out loud with text to speech before.

iMessage->Preferences->Alerts check 'Speak an announcement'

I think you can't do it right now. However if Apple gives iMessage support to Automator you can write an Automator script to do that and when the message arrived you can initiate that script from iMessage->Preferences->Alerts


Move windows around a desktop -- and to different desktops -- using only the keyboard? Here's what I'm trying to accomplish using only a keyboard:

Move a window to different areas/corners of a desktop
Move a window to different desktops
Set/unset a window as shown/sticky on all desktops

Yes, I know #3 could solve #2 by stickying a window, pressing ctrl+⌘+←/→, then unstickying it, which would be acceptable, but i'm hoping for something a little more elegant :)

  NB, if 1..3 can be solved in AppleScript, that would be great because Spark has been invaluable to tie an AppleScript to a global keyboard shortcut. However I don't think AppleScript can do this type of window location manipulation and a native Cocoa app may be required.

I really want to return to my keyboard-only nirvana but in my adoptive platform and shed Ubuntu Desktop.

Moving windows to another space:

SizeUp (still works for me in 10.8)
Spacey (stopped working in 10.7)

Moving windows to another display:

BetterSnapTool
BetterTouchTool
Flexiglass
Moom
Optimal Layout
SizeUp
Spectacle
Window Mover

Moom is pretty awesome and will allow you to do #1 and #2.
https://manytricks.com/moom/


Safari (5) or Mac OS X (10.6 Snow Leopard): Is past HTTP Post data stored? In either Safari 5 (history intact) or Snow Leopard, is there a way to view a sent HTTP Post request? A session expired and I am looking for the data that was posted (and lost).

No. Post data is deliberately never saved.

It's the most common way to send private data to a server, such as passwords every time you log in. It will never be saved unless the server writes it to a database somewhere.


Keychain management command-line utility I'am trying to fully automate the process FileVault setup on multiple OS X user machines.
E.g. to have a Bash script as a result.
One of the steps is Institutional Recovery Key (IRK) generation. This key is required to access encrypted hard disk without user credentials.
The generation command sudo security create-filevaultmaster-keychain create a public-private key pair.
But only the public one must be installed on the user machine.
I can delete it using Keychain Access utility.
But this is a GUI utility and cannot be called from the Bash.
So, how can i remove the private key from the keychain-file from the command line?

Or maybe there are already working scripts for this task :)

P.S. I've already read this but find no answer:
IRK management
security command man

I haven't tried recovering data with it yet but I think the following works:

security create-filevaultmaster-keychain ~/Desktop/FileVaultMaster.keychain

security export -k ~/Desktop/FileVaultMaster.keychain -t certs -o ~/Desktop/FileVaultMasterPublic.cer

sudo fdesetup changerecovery -institutional -certificate ~/Desktop/FileVaultMasterPublic.cer

In my case FileVault was already enabled so I just added it after the fact.

Type "man fdesetup" in the terminal app on your mac. Read the document.


Mountain Lion on Unibody late-2008 Macbook? I'm currently having a late-2008 Unibody Macbook with Snow Leopard installed. It runs really great!

However, I'm thinking of installing Mountain Lion. Mainly to use Filevault 2.

Will my Macbook run with ML?

It has the following specs:

2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3
40GB Intel 320 SSD

Your system specs are above the minimum requirements, so you should be fine. Lion and Mountain Lion do require more than the 2 GB RAM than Snow Leopard needs to run smoothly, in my experience. You've already got 4 GB, so that should be okay for all but the most busy systems with many large apps running simultaneously.

I did and ruin my computer was very slow and the wifi worked poorly


How do I get automator to act on multiple folders? I have a number of folders in the following format:

Folder_Name_1
    Converted_Files
        file1.aiff
        file2.aiff
             :
             :
        fileX.aiff
Folder_Name_2
    Converted_Files
        file1.aiff
        file2.aiff
             :
             :
        fileX.aiff
  :
  :
Folder_Name_nnn
    Converted_Files
        file1.aiff
        file2.aiff
             :
             :
        fileX.aiff

I have written a bash script that will move file1.aiff, file2.aiff, etc. up one level into Folder_Name_n and then delete "Converted_Files".

Automator will only act on one Folder_Name_n at a time.

What I want to do is have automator act on Folder_Name_1, then Folder_Name_2, all the way up to Folder_Name_n.

Here is my automator script:

Here's the bash script as text:

cd "$1"
cd Converted_Files
mv *.aiff ..
rm .DS_Store
cd ..
rm -r Converted_Files

Thanks.

As you were not too clear on the type of Automator workflow you've created, I'm going to focus primarily on the code you're using in the Run Shell Script action.

The following example Automator workflow was created by File > New > Workflow in Automator with a Get Selected Finder Items action and a Run Shell Script action added to it, with the settings as shown in the image farther below.

Testing was done with a selection containing both files and folders which included both the real targets of the Automator workflow's Run Shell Script action, and others as if accidentally selected if you will. With the following files and folders selected in Finder:

.
├── Archive.zip
├── Folder_Name_1
├── Folder_Name_2
├── Folder_Name_3
├── Foobar
└── Foobar.txt

The following expanded tree view, of the selected files and folders shown above, obviously contains both files which are not the real targets of the workflow as well as a folder not containing the expected contents. This was done to test that the example bash code works as expected.

.
├── Archive.zip
├── Folder_Name_1
│   └── Converted_Files
│       ├── file1.aiff
│       └── file2.aiff
├── Folder_Name_2
│   └── Converted_Files
│       ├── file1.aiff
│       └── file2.aiff
├── Folder_Name_3
│   └── Converted_Files
│       ├── file1.aiff
│       └── file2.aiff
├── Foobar
│   └── Barfoo
│       └── More Foobar.txt
└── Foobar.txt

8 directories, 9 files

After running the workflow from Automator on the selected files and folders in Finder, the following shows the new expanded tree view of the original selection expanded tree view:

.
├── Archive.zip
├── Folder_Name_1
│   ├── file1.aiff
│   └── file2.aiff
├── Folder_Name_2
│   ├── file1.aiff
│   └── file2.aiff
├── Folder_Name_3
│   ├── file1.aiff
│   └── file2.aiff
├── Foobar
│   └── Barfoo
│       └── More Foobar.txt
└── Foobar.txt

5 directories, 9 files

As you can see in the image below, and in conjunction with the information presented above, the Automator workflow completed without error and only processed the appropriate target folders even though additional non-targets were sent to the Run Shell Script action as shown above.

Also note that additional testing was done with the target folders /Folder_Name_N/Converted_Files/ containing non .aiff content to insure that other then the moved .aiff content did not have to be explicitly deleted, e.g. rm .DS_Store was not necessary, as the -r option of the rm command will attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. You might also consider using the -f option too. (I've already added it to my example bash code, so remove it if you don't want to use that option.)

Example bash code for the Run Shell Script action:

for d in "$@"; do
    [ -d "$d" ] || continue
    if [ -d "$d/Converted_Files" ]; then
        cd "$d/Converted_Files" || exit
        for f in *.aiff; do
            mv "$f" ..
        done
    fi
    cd ..
    rm -rf "Converted_Files"
done

Note that the example bash code is just that, and may not contain all error handling as may be appropriate/needed/wanted. The onus is always upon the user to implement any appropriate/needed/wanted error handling with whatever code one chooses to use.

Testing was preformed under macOS High Sierra 10.13.6.


Display seconds in addition to hours and minutes on the Clock How would I go about getting the clock on my iPhone to display the seconds beside the minutes?

I have looked at Settings → General → Date & Time, but it only allows me to choose a Time Zone, Set the clock automatically or toggle 24-Hour Time.

Is there anything I can do to cause the clock to display seconds in addition to minutes and hours?

If you look at the icon for the Clock app on your home screen it has a second hand. For most cases this is sufficient for me.

If u want to time 90 seconds set it to 2 minutes then run it down to 1 min 30 secs. Hit pause.  Now u can run 90 secs.


Can I "hide" the keyboard on my iPhone 4 the way you can on the iPad? When using my iPad to, for example, write an email, I have the option to press a button and hide the keyboard.  This is useful for reviewing an email prior to sending it.

Is there a similar feature with the iPhone?  If anything, this would seem particularly useful on the iPhone given its smaller screen.

Unfortunately not. I agree that this feature would be nice, especially since it's included on the iPad. The only way to review an email prior to sending it without having the keyboard on the screen is to save it as a draft, then reopen it. A little tedious, sure, but it might be worth it if it's a long email.

In Messages, just hit "Edit" and don't delete anything.


iOS 7 Apps on iPad show up as installed but are not actually installed I have a few apps that appear to be installed on my iPad running iOS 7 but are not actually installed.

For instance, the app is no where on any home screen or inside any folder, but visiting the App Store and navigating to the app page on my iPad does not show an iCloud download button or a "Free/Buy" button.

The OS seems to think the app is there, but it's not. If it is installed I have no way of seeing or using it.

Things I've already tried:

Uninstalling, re-installing through iTunes (latest version)
Signing out of the iTunes/App Store on my iPad and signing back in

Has anybody had this problem or is there a fix anyone knows about?

Update (screenshots)

If they are installed, then the App Store should now say OPEN instead of buy, or re-download etc.

You can try to find the apps with Spotlight to see if they are just hidden icons (various bugs can hide your apps on occasion) or genuinely not installed; just swipe down from the center of the screen and search for the apps name.  if it finds it, then:

Settings > General > Reset > Reset Home Screen will bring back all your missing icons, at the expense of removing all your folders and putting the pre-installed apps back to their original positions.

do not panic people, I have the same problem. just reboot your iPad by turn off your iPad main power about 30 seconds then turn it back on, every thing will be go back to normal.


Iphone 5 is refusing to turn on I've read earlier that after completely recharging iPhone 5 it should automatically turn on. But only in case when battery was drained to 0% and phone turned itself off.

I have recharged the phone to 100% but it is refusing to turn on. My power button is not working. Are there any other means to switch it on?

If an iPhone or iOS device doesn’t self start after 15 minutes of charging, the proper step is to force a reset and then repeat this pattern four or more times before seeking a repair of the hardware.

Since your home button is broken, you could try disconnecting from power and reconnecting at each 15 minute point and hope.

You likely have two problems that need fixing, though. The button and the power circuitry or the electronics to start / run are failing. The tech (or you) will need to open the device to figure out which.

Have you tried to turn it on pressing the power button and home button at the same time once it's charged?


How to fix no backlit keyboard on BootCamp Windows 8 partition I have a Retina Display MacBook Pro with the latest OSX and also installed Windows 8 RTM on BootCamp.

I hadn't logged into BootCamp in a few weeks, so I dont recall if the backlit keyboard ever worked on bootcamp or not. The thing is, I haven't been able to make it backlit.

I installed Power Plan Assistant (and Trackpad++), and the "Turn Off backlit keyboard" option doesnt do anything. I thought if I clicked on it, it'd toggle whatever setting it is it uses to actually turn it off, and I could use that to turn it on.

As far as I know, I have the latest bootcamp drivers (i update anytime I get an alert about that), and the latest windows drivers on the bootcamp install.

I've googled extensively about how to manually turn the backlit keyboard on on a bootcamp partition, but haven't find anything. I tried dimming the display to 0, then to the max, and that doesnt work.

If it helps at all, my function keys don't work either on bootcamp.

Any ideas?

Keyboard lights work perfectly in both W7 and W8. (and Fn F5 and Fn F6 control the intensity)

Try reinstalling the WindowsSupport files (which reinstalls the keyboard driver), you should not lose T++ functionality, but if you do just reinstall it (Power Plan Assist reinstallation is not needed)

Sometimes after some sleep-wake cycles the dimmer function stops working (Pressing Fn F5-F6 brings up a gray panel with a disabled sign), rebooting fixes the problem.

After restarting bootcamp.exe backlit is back, thanks to Valerie Hansen


Change color of desktop font (Yosemite) Tinkertool took care of most of the too-small fonts (are any Apple designers over 40?), but the white text on my preferred light desktop is bad. Linux GTX has a rather tricky file to hand-edit to fix a similar bad default. Does Yosemite have any well-hidden way of changing the desktop icon font color?

As far as I know, it is not possible to change the color of the system font. The system graphic interface files are under the license protection of Apple's user agreement and they are well guarded with encryptions. This also results in the lack of capacity of turning off full screen animation, and other unfortunate unique OSX graphic interface design features and behaviors.

You can create your own user .css file to modify the default fonts when using Safari on Yosemite


No SIM Card installed error in iPhone 3g My iPhone 3G is showing

  No SIM Card installed
  Insert a valid SIM With no PIN lock to activate iPhone

It is in Emergency mode so please give me a solution if there is..?

It happened when I am tried to update the from iOS 4.1 to 4.2.

This is actually a pretty complicated problem with not enough detail to know which one of many things is causing the failure so I'll go over some basics:

Your phone needs to be activated
through iTunes after a restore - so
something in that restore process
didn't work.
The sim and phone have three components - any of which can fail.
The activation process is complicated and has a lot of checks to be sure the image you are installing is not modified so that the phone will work as designed. This activation needs to connect to the internet so even when everything under your control is correct, it still fails from time to time. Problems on your computer with iTunes or the system itself can cause this to happen on an otherwise working phone.

I'm also going to assume the phone is locked to AT&T to keep things simple. If the phone is unlocked legitimately through the carrier and officially recognized by iTunes' activation process this is much more complicated. If it's otherwise modified, the complication is really much more involved so I'll leave those out of the discussion.

Looking at #1 above - the best advice is to reseat the SIM card and then try again to make sure it wasn't a timing or contact alignment issue. Considering #3 above - it's simplest to take your device to a totally different computer and try the restore there - you can always take it back to your computer to put the backup on it once it's working.

Let's look at #2 in more depth - sim and phone. A bad sim will cause this - you'll need to get another SIM to test this and replace the SIM with one active from your carrier if it's the cause.

Have you tried another SIM from your carrier - it doesn't have to be attached to an active contract or active line - it just has to be working. Try to rule out that the sim itself is bad or has failed. A good SIM will get you to "waiting for activation" and a full restore so you can copy apps to the phone and otherwise use it on WiFi. Putting your SIM in another phone can help know that your SIM is not bad, but it has to work in your phone, so you may need to get another SIM even if yours works in another device.

Once you rule out the SIM - you'll need to rule out software. Do another restore of the phone following this knowledge base article. If that doesn't work, force the device into restore mode to get the software loaded properly. Be sure there's not a failure in the restore process or you'll be wasting time on SIM olympics or getting your phone swapped.

That's the third part of #2 - if your phone has a failure (dust or dirt, contact problems, moisture or corrosion on the inside that is causing the circuitry to break, or just a random electrical failure) you will need to get it in for service. There a technician will have the tools (otoscope, test rig, test SIM, good software to restore your device) and the training to know what worn contacts look like to know if it's a cleaning/reseat issue or a hardware repair is needed.

try to restore it using redsnow and try also to watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9BMXflZKiM


Sorting Contacts in Other Languages I use the iPhone in English, but I save the names of my contacts in Russian. The problem is that they all appear now under (#).

Is there any way to fix that?

I had a similar problem. Have several contacts in Serbian (cyrillic) others in English. I solved the problem by adding to each contact written in cyrillic new fields for phonetic spelling for the last and the first name.

Sorting Japanese or Chinese  is not only difficult—it’s an unsolved problem. This seems hard to believe if you are not familiar with the complexities of processing Japanese  or Chinese  digitally. But what is trivially easy in English is impossible in Japanese or Chinese, even with the amount of computer power we have available today.


Remove existing Facebook account from OS X I had synchronized my personal Facebook account on OS X Mountain Lion in System Preferences  > Mail, Contacts & Calendars through the Facebook tab. I removed it and synchronized my official account on it, but I'm still getting notifications for the personal account.

How do I remove the personal account details permanently and stop the notifications?

Update

I have upgraded my Mac to OS X Mavericks 10.9, but the problem exists on the upgraded OS X version too.

Edit

I have found another thing with my mac. This issue happens only for my official account. If i have synchronized any other accounts. It doesn't happen. Working fine. What may be the problem with this?

My suggestion would be to log out of the current Facebook account. Then go into your user's Library folder (holding down the alt / opt key while in the "Go" menu in Finder and you will see a new entry "Library"). In your Library folder enter the subfolder "Preferences" and delete these two files:

com.apple.accountsd.plist & com.apple.internetaccounts.plist (or just shove them over to the Desktop for testing)

Log out and back into the correct account and see if there are any notifications in Notification Center still listed. If yes, then download Onyx from http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php and let it do an automation where it clears all caches. When Onyx is done it will ask you to restart.

From here you should be good and there should be no trace of the original/old Facebook account. If however you notice anything still being left over, comment back with more information.

Find it under System Preferences > Internet Accounts. You can remove Facebook account from there.


Disabling startup items that run despite being unchecked on the "login items" list I have a number of (background) programs that startup automatically on login even though they have been disabled (unchecked) on the Login Items pane of the Users & Groups System Preferences. Examples include DropBox, ChronoSync Backgrounder, and Boingo.

Q: How can I disable/control these login items that don't respond to the systems preferences settings?
Related sub-questions:

Why do the checkboxes in the login items list not work?
What are all of the places that non-system startup items can be found/controlled?

Current system configuration: MacBook (13in Aluminum, Late 2008), Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 (11D50), But this problem existed on Snow Leopard before upgrading to Lion.

The checkboxes are not for disabling the application launch, but if checked, the application gets hidden as if you were pressing CMD+H. To disable it, select it in the list and click on the Minus-button beneath that list. By that you remove them. You can't just disable them with OS X tools.

To see a summary of all LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons you can use a software like Lingon or you can have a look at /Library/LaunchDaemons, /Library/LaunchAgents, /System/Library/LaunchAgents, and /System/Library/LaunchDaemons as well as ~/Library/LaunchDaemons, ~/Library/LaunchAgents, ~/Library/StartupItems, and /Library/StartupItems.

use

launchctl list to check the configured start up items.
launchctl print-cache to see current running config which help to locate started process.


How do I retrieve previous iTunes purchases I wish to download previous iTunes purchases on my iPhone, but there is nothing showing up in my purchases.  When I go direct and search on iTunes for the music I have downloaded it says I have purchased but wont let me re download.

Any ideas?

You can download previous purchases from the App Store, iBooks Store and iTunes store. The following Apple article outlines what you need to do depending on the store and platform you are using.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

Generally you can't re-download purchased songs from the iTunes Store, but this link suggests that there might be a way to do it after all.

  [...]But first, make absolutely sure that you don’t have any copies,
  anywhere. It’s only prudent.

  Once you are really sure that those iTunes songs are gone, here’s what
  to do:

  Open the iTunes Store on your device.
  Make sure you are signed in with the same account used for the original purchase.
  Tap Purchased from the bottom navigation bar.
  From the Purchased tab, tap the artist name for the content you intend to download again.
  Once you’ve located the music you are looking for, tap the download button.

  (If you want to download all songs from an album that you’ve
  purchased, click on the button to swith to the “Album” view.)

This may or may not work for you, but it's worth a try.


How can I delete photos from my iPhone and still retain them on my desktop? How can I delete photos from my iPhone and still retain them on my desktop (OS X El Capitan)? I am not sure if it is possible to delete from my iPhone once the photos are on my desktop.

I suggest you to firstly disable My Photo Stream then sync your iPhone with your Mac library (using cable for instance).

In this way you can keep update the photos in your library by importing recent photos from iPhone and at the same time you can remove the pics from your iPhone without losing the copy pic in the Mac.

I had the same issue! My ICloud storage was full and I could not delete pictures from my iPhone or Mac without losing them completely. I figured how to clear up this issue, you have to remove your "documents and Desktop folders" from Icloud storage..on your Mac go to settings, iCloud,click options next to iCloud Drive, uncheck Desktop and Documents folder, this will remove everything from your desktop and in your documents folder so make sure you drag all of your important documents over to ICloud before you complete this step. Once the desktop and documents folder is removed from Icloud, drag all your important documents back to your desktop, add a "photos" folder to your desktop for your photos and Transfer all of your photos from your photo app on into your new "photo" folder. You can now delete pictures off of your iPhone and the photo app and still have them safe on your desktop. Hope this helps!!


No sound MacBook Pro 2016 13" touchbar macOS Sierra 10.12.2 My new macbook laptop keeps losing the sound, anyone knows anything I can do besides restarting or logging out?

Last time It fixed itself automagically, it's a macbook pro 2016, 13" with touchbar

I can even hear a tick when I switch from hdmi to the headphones but it wont output any sound from youtube or VLC or anything else.

I can only hear Siri.

I can't afford to be restarting my computer manually every time this happens.

On linux I can restart the service and fix it but I don't know how to do it in mac.

OS Version: macOs Sierra 10.12.2

This is a very annoying problem. Just fixed it by switching the power cord from the front right USB port to the back right USB port. Very strange and aggravating! Otherwise used the sudo command noted above with success.


Can I share network access from Ethernet over WiFi? I have 3 devices:

A Linux server
A MacBook
An iPad

I currently have no router. But, the Linux server and MacBook are connected by Ethernet through a switch. The MacBook and iPad are connected by Wi-Fi,  the Wi-Fi network is created by the MacBook.

The MacBook is able to connect to Linux just fine, through ssh and view webpages hosted on the Linux server. The iPad is able to view pages hosted on the MacBook but is unable to connect to the Linux server. It appears that the MacBook keeps the two networks separate. I tried using the internet sharing feature on the MacBook. Sharing Ethernet to devices through Wi-Fi, but it doesn't help because it's not the Internet I want to share it's a local network.

Is there a way to have my MacBook share its Ethernet connection over WiFi so that the iPad can load pages hosted on the Linux server?

It sounds like you are looking to share your ethernet connection to Wi-Fi devices, this is possible although there is an exception where your ethernet connection implements authentication, but your Mac will state this.

To get started:

Open System Preferences
Navigate to Sharing
Enable Internet Sharing (left hand list)
Set the "Share your connection from:" dropdown to your ethernet port
Check the "Wi-Fi" option in the list "To computers using:"
Click "Wi-Fi Options" and configure the options for the network you'd like to create
Press "OK"

Now try connecting a device to the newly created Wi-Fi network.


Is it possible to disable Personal Hotspot on iPhones with a configuration profile? The company I work for is having an issue with users racking up huge data bills with iOS hotspot tethering. Is there a way we can push a profile that will disable this feature? I have looked through the iPhone Configuration Utility and cannot find any settings for this feature.

As of iOS 9.2, there is no way to disable the Personal Hotspot feature through Configuration Profiles.

The best you can do at the moment is to use an MDM server to report on the status of the Personal Hotspot feature and manually instruct users to switch it off, or arrange to disable it through your carrier.

usually you are able to produce/edit/setup/maintain/distribute profiles with the Profile Manager as part of Mac OS X Server


Why are folders with weird names automatically appearing on my Desktop? Many of these weird folders show up all the time with these titles: 00, 0a, 0b... 0f;  01, 1a, 1b...1f;  02, 2a, 2b...2f;  03, 3a, 3b... 3f; etc up to ff. Why? What is this? What can I do to stop it?
They come back when I throw them out, which I've done many times
here are some screen shots to give you an idea:

They look suspiciously like folders from a iPhone or iPod backup, which is typically not found on the desktop (normally found in ~/Library/Application Support/Mobile Sync/Backup//
If so, the backup would consist of a folder with an iPhone ID as a name and all those folders you see inside it. The folders have 2 character names. Inside one of these folders (say 00) are feels with file names starting with the name of the folder. One example filename for me is 00aabeab60f635dc810b27b8b884e90115caef61. All characters would be hex digits.
In iTunes Preferences under Devices you can see the individual backups, if any. Selecting one, then right-clicking will pop up a menu with the choice "Show in Finder". If this is what it is, then a new window should open showing where the backup is.
It could be some other Apple generated backup as well.


Mac only approves password on second entry Every time I try to open my Mac, it doesn't approve my password the first time but approves it the second time. What is the reason?

The reason you're asked to enter password two times may be because FileVault is enabled. When FileVault is enabled, you're first prompted to enter in your login information to unlock the disk at the EFI Login Window, and then you're prompted to enter in your login information again to go into your actual user account.

Recommended workaround is

You turn off FileVault (System Preferences → Security & Privacy → FileVault),  or
To allow automatic login when FileVault is turned on, enter this on Terminal

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DisableFDEAutoLogin

Please refer to this Apple Support Communities thread for more details
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7690125


Applescript, how to mount remote server without error if unavailable? I attempted this question earlier today but finally realized I had completely mangled what I was trying to ask and also posted the wrong script code.  This is attempt #2.

I have two Macs that reboot automatically early each morning in order to keep all of their various services functioning optimally. Each Mac needs to mount a volume on the other after they boot up.  This is easy enough to do, except for a case where one machine hangs during the restart for any reason.

If one of the machines is unavailable when the other boots, then obviously its attempt to mount the unavailable machine will fail.  The script is designed to run every minute or so in a loop for as long as the remote volume has not been mounted, since eventually it will come up.  But when the mount fails, it produces an error dialog on the machine trying to perform the mount, which then breaks the loop and the script does not repeat.

Is there a way in AppleScript to attempt to mount a server, but without an error dialog if that server is unavailable in the moment?

I thought this was a main purpose for try blocks, but it hasn't made any difference.

Here is the script I currently run at boot time (it's an Automator application).  The workflow is a Get Specified Server block, followed by a Run AppleScript block.  Here is the AppleScript:

on run {input, parameters}
    try
        set server to (item 1 of input) -- this gets the server address from the Get Specified Servers block
    end try
    set vol to "Streaming"
    tell application "Finder"
        set isConnected to disk vol exists
    end tell
    repeat while isConnected = false -- as long as the volume is not present, try to mount it

        try
            tell application "Finder"
                mount volume server & "/" & vol -- This produces the error dialog and halts the script, if the server is unavailable
            end tell
        end try
        delay 2

        tell application "Finder"
            set isConnected to disk vol exists
        end tell
        if isConnected = false then
            delay 60 -- if the volume still doesn't exist, wait a minute before trying again
        end if

    end repeat
    return input
end run

Everything works perfectly as long as the remote volume is ready and accessible.  But if not, the error dialog appears.

Edit:  I found this thread and this quite complicated thread elsewhere that are attempting to address the same issue, but no simple, definitive solution seems to have been found.

Using a macOS Catalina system as the file server with /Users/Shared/Videos as an SMB shared resource, and having done a bit of testing, found the following example AppleScript code to work well when testing using Script Editor from another system on the network in which the credentials have already been saved in its Keychain:

set ipAddress to "172.16.15.141"
set sharedResource to "Videos"

if workgroupAvailable(ipAddress) then
    mount volume "smb://" & ipAddress & "/" & sharedResource
end if

on workgroupAvailable(ipAddress)
    set workGroup to do shell script ¬
        "smbutil status " & ipAddress & " | awk '/Workgroup:/{print $2}'"
    if workGroup is equal to "" then
        return false
    else
        return true
    end if
end workgroupAvailable

The replies from the above example AppleScript code were:

When the shared resource was not available:

 tell current application
    do shell script "smbutil status 172.16.15.141 | awk '/Workgroup:/{print $2}'"
    --> ""
 end tell

When the shared resource was available:

tell current application
    do shell script "smbutil status 172.16.15.141 | awk '/Workgroup:/{print $2}'"
        --> "WORKGROUP"
end tell
tell application "Script Editor"
    mount volume "smb://172.16.15.141/Videos"
        --> file "Videos:"
end tell
Result:
file "Videos:"

What I found with using the smbutil status command over curl, which on my network required httpd running on the server, and ping, which could reply even if the shared resource wasn't available, was that smbutil status failed to return the Workgroup name if the shared resource wasn't available to be mounted and in turn no attempt to mount occurs if the Workgroup isn't available.

This example AppleScript code also did not cause any dialog boxes to appear at any point when the shared resource wasn't available.

Note that although testing was done with the rebooting of the file server and attempting to connect at various times during the reboot and the system actually being available, I was unable to test if the system had hung during the reboot, as it just has never hung during any reboots. As I know this is an unresolved issue with the rebooting of your server, you can give this a try if you so choose.

Obviously you can adapt the example AppleScript code to suite your specific needs.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.

Determining whether a URL is reachable

This is something that is a lot simpler than people think, but also not usually the first thing that would pop into anyone's mind because this is one of only a few practical uses for AppleScript's URL class.

You can take an everyday internet URL as a string and coerce it to type class URL, e.g.

"https://duckduckgo.com" as URL

which returns the following record:

{
    class: URL,
    scheme: secure http URL,
    path: "https://duckduckgo.com",
    host: {
        class: Internet address,
        DNS form: "duckduckgo.com",
        port: 443,
        dotted decimal form: "52.213.95.108"
    }
}

(though AppleScript won't pretty-print it).  Here's a similar coercion using a web address that I know does not exist:

"https://quackquackyo.com" as URL
    --> {
            class: URL,
            scheme: secure http URL,
            path: "https://quackquackyo.com",
            host: {
                class: Internet address,
                DNS form: "quackquackyo.com",
                port: 443
            }
        }

Then it's just a game of spot the difference: if a URL resolves to an address that is reachable, AppleScript's URL class object returns a dotted decimal form representing the IP address of the server; if the URL does not resolve, then this IP address is omitted.

Using this discriminator, we can create a handler that returns true or false depending on whether or not a given URL is reachable:

on urlIsReachable(www as URL)
    local www
    set www to www's host & {dotted decimal form:false}
    return www's dotted decimal form ≠ false
end urlIsReachable

To use:

urlIsReachable("https://www.google.com")    --> true
urlIsReachable("https://CK-mac.local")      --> true
urlIsReachable("http://CK.local")           --> true
urlIsReachable("http://CK-maaaaaaac.local") --> false

Bear in mind, however, this doesn't tell you that the machines on my network called CK-mac and CK have the afp or smb file sharing ports open, and trying to resolve an afp:// or smb:// URL will throw an error, because the URL class object doesn't recognise very many schemes.  It also means that if a machine has closed its http or https ports (80 and 443, respectively), then those will return false even if ports 445 (smb) or 548 (afp) are open.  So, while this method has limitations, I don't think it's a very common situation that file sharing ports are open on a machine with hypertext transfer ports specifically closed.  AppleScript's URL class also recognises ftp:// URLs, but if it resolves for any of your personal devices, you should probably turn off its ftp server so that it doesn't.

Determining whether a disk is mounted in Finder

It looks like you have a method for determining whether or not a disk is currently mounted on your filesystem, and it's a perfectly suitable one.  I'm always mindful, however, how temperamental Finder can be, and how easily it blocks when doing other tasks.  Therefore, personally, if I can avoid involving it (in pretty much anything), I will.  And, of course, if you can leverage AppleScript's built-in capabilities without calling out to another application to do a job, that's (almost) always going to be faster and more reliable.  So, to this end, here's a quick handler:

on volumeIsMounted(name as text)
    local name
    "/Volumes/" & name as «class furl» as {alias, text}
    return result's class ≠ text
end volumeIsMounted

To use:

volumeIsMounted("MEDIA LIBRARY")      --> true
volumeIsMounted("rsaref")             --> true
volumeIsMounted("MEDIAAAAAA LIBRARY") --> false

For reference, "MEDIA LIBRARY" is the name of remote disk on my network attached to machine CK.local, which is mounted as an afp fileshare for the purposes of testing.  I also wanted to test a remote-remote server, so I mounted an ftp server available to everyone at "ftp://static.zedz.net/pub/security/cryptography/libraries/math/rsaref" (this is not me endorsing the safety of opening any files you might find on this server, so just be thoughtful before you consider accessing any random fileshare over the internet).  "MEDIAAAAAA LIBRARY", I'm guessing you know, is not mounted on my filesystem.

This actually frees your entire script from having to use Finder at all.  mount volume is a Standard Additions command, so doesn't need to be used in a Finder tell block, and will be more performant if it's not.  Nothing else here or in your script requires Finder either.  That's a win, in my book.


OSX High Sierra stop applications from auto launching This is driving me crazy!
Whenever I reboot in OSX High Sierra all the applications I had open automatically reboot.
In Login Items NONE of these applications are there!

How do I stop this from happening?

It's a standard feature & has been there for years.

It asks you as you shut down or reboot - just uncheck the box, it should remember.

Apart from the checkbox mentioned in Tetsujin's answer make sure you don't have any unwanted startup items under

Apple menu > System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items.

Make sure you select the unwanted auto-start item and click the - button since Hide will only hide the app from the Dock.

Also, if you reboot by typing sudo reboot from terminal, then apparently the setting for reopen windows is assumed to be true. In such cases, to avoid auto-starting the apps, after you have entered your password on the login screen, press the SHIFT key, then ENTER, and then keep holding the SHIFT key until the Dock is shown.


Password reset issue using terminal method No user accounts are displayed in the window that pops up after I enter the 'resetpassword' command into the terminal.

Is there another way to reset my admin password or fix this issue?

A wire connecting the hard drive was loose.


Changing home network on SIM card I have an iPhone 4S from Verizon, which they've "unlocked" for international use. I say "unlocked" in quotes because it's still restricted from US SIM cards. I'm able to use any international SIM, but I can't use a SIM from AT&T, T-Mobile or AirFire.

I'm guessing this restriction involves checking if the Mobile Country Code is from the United States (310-316, I think). Since AT&T's MCC-MNC is 310-410, it's obvious the phone shouldn't be happy with it. However, with a SIM from GiffGaff (a virtual carrier on o2's network), I'm able to use AT&T in the US because their MCC-MNC is on the list, but not in the home position.

Armed with this information, I'm guessing I can take an AT&T SIM card, bump all the MCC-MNC's on the list down a position, and add a UK carrier in the 'home' position? That way my phone will look for the UK carrier and believe that it's a UK carrier's SIM, not find it and then move down the list to the roaming networks?

If anyone has any information on if this will work, or can point me in the right directions for the tools to try this, please let me know!

Afaik Verizon can only unlock the phone completely and not block certain carriers.

Until the iPhone 5, there was no model that supports CDMA and GSM.

The reason your phone doesn't work on an AT&T network (or most international networks for that matter) is because AT&T doesn't run a CDMA network.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3939

I don't think Verizon is to blame for this. This is a technical issue. The Verizon iPhone 4 uses Qualcomm MDM6600 chip capable of doing CDMA and GSM; however, Apple failed to provide support for GSM, so from the hardware point of view alone it is useless for GSM.

Verizon iPhones only work in select European countries. See the list here.


How can I add new folders to the Favorites in the Finder sidebar? I'd like to create a new Favorites folder item in the Finder, how can I tell the Finder that I would like a particular folder to appear in my list of Favorites shown on the left hand sidebar of the Finder window and in dialogs to open a file in an application?  I expected to find this in the Finder's Preferences, but the Sidebar tab of the preferences only allows you to toggle the visibility of your existing Favorites, not add new ones.  I see that applications like DropBox are able to extend this Sidebar, so what about an end user, how can I extend it?

Drag the folder to the desired position in the sidebar. This adds the folder to the sidebar in every current and future Finder window, as well as Finder Open/Save windows/sheets.

Removal is done by dragging the folder from the sidebar out to the side.

Opening the folder and then dropping the icon from the header worked best for me as cmd drop only adds a link and not the actual folder-a very important distinction.


Set PATH variable so that it is detected in all applications, even outside terminal. (El Captain) My ~/etc/path looks as follows:

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

The Problem:

When I type echo $PATH into terminal, I get back:

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

And this persists for every application started in the terminal. For instance, if I type emacs, and then do:

M-x getenv PATH

My output is:

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

However, if I start up emacs using launchpad instead of terminal and once again enter M-x getenv PATH, my output is instead /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin.

As you can see my change to ~/etc/path, which was the addition of /usr/local/bin, is missing.

Another Example:

I use a Firefox plugin called vimperator which emulates vim functionality in Firefox. It has a feature that allows the user to edit webpage input in vim. However, this does not seem to work on OS X. On a hunch I type the command !echo $PATH into vimperator and see the following: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin. Of course, since the symlink called gvim, which points to macvim, was created and placed into /usr/local/bin by brew, this behavior makes sense. What I don't understand is why the PATH is read the way it is.

Solutions that I have tried:

I have obviously restarted my machine.

EDIT (As requested by now deleted comment):

using sysctl user.cs_path in the terminal brings up:

user.cs_path: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

The loginwindow process sets a user's environment. It sets the variables TMPDIR and PATH, consults Directory Services and sets SHELL HOME USER LOGNAME . PATH is set to /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin unless modified by launchd (in the more current versions of OS X). This is the PATH variable available to the user's processes unless modified by that particular process (cron as an example sets the PATH to /bin:/usr/bin).

Terminal emulator applications start your shell as a login shell thus the PATH is modified by reading the various shell startup file. Any process started by your shell now inherits the new PATH variable. Other applications using a shell do not read any shell config files and use those environment variables available in the current environment. An application may modify the environment by using the LSEnvironment key in their Info.plist.

As of Yosemite, you can change the PATH variable in the following form.

sudo launchctl config user path <path>

in your case you want /usr/local/bin at the front of the path.

sudo launchctl config user path /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

reboot your system and the new PATH will be set by loginwindow.

Run this:

launchctl setenv PATH "$PATH"

EDIT: That no longer works. Use this with Bash instead:

CURRENT="$(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print PATH" ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist)"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set PATH $CURRENT:/your/path/here:/another/path/maybe" ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist

Then log out and log in again.

Note: You may want to replace $CURRENT:/your/path/here:/another/path/maybe with just a list of paths like :/your/path/here:/another/path/maybe, but that is a bad idea becase it will erase all paths already stored.

This uses User Session Environment Variables.


Cannot open graph .gcx file saved by Grapher I'm facing an issue where I am unable to re-open any saved graphs that have a contour plot inside. For example, if you plot sin(x)*cos(y) and save it, you will not be able to reopen it in Grapher. It will just say: The document “test.gcx” could not be opened.

Example of a plot that I cannot save and re-open:

Apple's grapher does not save and reopen correctly files without real equation (with the sign equal)
Another problem is with upgrading the os, and the security : sometimes you have to allow (with "open anyway" box in the security preference panel) the system to load a file previously created.

If you save your file to your home directory or a directory under home, you should be able to open the file later. I have Big Sur on my 2020 intel iMac and I made a 3d contour plot and saved it to my home directory. I was about to open the file with Grapher.


Mounting a remote SCP or SFTP share on Mac I use Fuse4X and ForkLift to mount a remote directory (a dev server). I use PHPStorm to open projects and source (/Volumes/dev/project_path), but sometimes it happens that Forklift freezes (in Activity Monitor 100 and more percent cpu). To solve this I have to kill Forklift, remount and reopen project.

Any idea or tip for better mounting?

Seems https://mountainduck.io is where it's at:

  Mountain Duck lets you mount server and cloud storage as a local disk in the Finder.app on Mac and the File Explorer on Windows. Open remote files with any application and work like on a local volume.

If you find other alternatives, add them at https://alternativeto.net/software/mountain-duck/

This is not selling pitch but I use Flow sftp+ftp application to work on my servers.


I don't want to use iMessage on an iOS 11 phone. How do I turn it off? How do I turn it off?

When I sent to Settings, Messages and turned off iMessages.  But then I am unable to SMS people with iPhones.

Error dialog pops up:

iMessage needs to be enabled to send this message.

I don't want to fix iMessage.  I don't want to use it.  I have unlimited SMS so don't see the point.  Is this possible?

Turn off iMessage by going to Settings>Messages and switching off iMessage.

Then make sure "MMS Messagging" is turned on.

For more information check here:

  Deregister iMessage on your iPhone

  If you still have your iPhone, you can deregister iMessage with these steps:

  If you transferred your SIM card from your iPhone to a non-Apple phone, put it back in your iPhone.
  Make sure that you're connected to your cellular data network.
  Tap Settings > Messages and turn off iMessage.

How do I turn it off? ... I don't want to use it. I have unlimited SMS so don't see the point.

iMessage IS the SMS app. If you turn it off, you also turn off SMS. If you only want to message people via SMS then use their phone number and not their email as the message destination. These messages will appear in green, messages in blue are via apple ID.

An iMessage text will cost nothing so your reason for not wanting to use iMessage is unclear. The phone will work out for itself the most efficient way to send a text - SMS, iMessage over mobile data, iMessage over wifi. Unlikely the other end will care.


iTunes local backup of iOS device: can't disable encryption I have a strange problem with iTunes local backup of an iOS device (an iPod, in this case).

I know I've backed up the iPod to my computer before, but iTunes states, "Latest Backup: Your iPod has never been backed up to this computer."  The last local backup was a long time ago, under older versions of iTunes and OS X.  Maybe the current version of iTunes doesn't entirely recognize the old settings.

The iPod's backup settings in iTunes had "iCloud" selected.  I know whatever backup is in iCloud is very old and incomplete, since I didn't have space there to complete the backup.  Although "iCloud" was selected, the "Encrypt local backup" option is checked under "This computer" (which wasn't selected).

I want to change to local backup, but I don't remember what password I might have set when I used that option before.  I tried using the "Change password..." button to change it, but since I can't remember the current password, I can't specify a new one.  I've also tried disabling the "Encrypt local backup" with the idea of enabling it again later, just before the backup.  However, disabling that also prompts me for the password which I can't remember.

I've tried various passwords I've used before, including my current and recent ones for my OS X account.  I've tried my current and recent AppleID passwords, and my iPod's current and recent 4-digit passcodes.  None of them worked.

The "Devices" panel of iTunes preferences doesn't list any device backups.  The ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup folder is empty, too.

Since my computer doesn't seem to have any backups on it, I'd like to get iTunes to think that a password hasn't been set for encrypting local backups.  I've already checked Keychain Access and it doesn't have any passwords set for "backup" or any variations of my iPod's name.

Does anybody have ideas of how I can get iTunes to forget about the old settings for encrypting local backups?

Look in Utilities/Keychain to see if the backup password is there


Can you set custom ringtones for contact groups? In iPhone, you can easily change the default ringtone (Settings → Sounds → Ringtone) and set a custom ringtone for individual people (Contacts → [some person] → Edit → Ringtone).

But can you set a custom tone for a group of contacts? (E.g. "family" or "workmates".)

I think that would be handy—and quite basic functionality, so to speak—but I couldn't find a way to do this through the iPhone UI. Is it possible at all (without jailbreaking)?

It is unfortunately not (yet or ever?) officially supported as a feature of iOS.

yes, you can assign ringtones to contact groups on iPhone using Grouptones tweak ($2.99 in Cydia, requires jailbreak).

See http://grouptonesapp.com for details!


Why can't I add or edit contacts on my new iPhone 4? On my new iPhone 4, I can add a new contact after talking to them (Add as new contact) but I cannot otherwise add new contacts, or edit existing ones.

It looks like a bug.  Is there a way to work around it, or do I have to wait for Apple to fix their issue?  The phone is not jailbroken.

You can use the Contacts application provided in the iPhone 4, and create/edit contacts in there.

just go to settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > if there is a accont (hotmail, g mail etc.) just delete the account and then  automatically you can start adding contacts


Turn off encrypted backup on iPhone that has a profile without removing profiles I have iPhones that have profiles on them that were password protected profiles and those passwords have been lost.  So we need to wipe the iphones and was hoping to to a backup first and then restore without the profiles on there.  Problem is, it won't let me do a backup without encrypting first.  I have read that in order to not encrypt the backup you need to remove the profiles, but in this case we can't remove the profiles.
Is there any way to turn this encryption off??

When you have a profile that enforces encryption of backups, you really only have three options:

Live with the encrypted backups and do nothing.
Get someone to remove the profile (or wipe the device along with the profile and start over being careful to not allow profiles that force you into encrypted backups).
Somehow exploit a bug or flaw in the security of iOS and bypass this lock. I would expect you to pay big money or have some assistance from NSA-like organization to accomplish this last item unless someone publishes a weakness in iOS that we could take advantage of to bypass the security your iPhone has configured.

As it stands, you will likely have to remove the profile to bypass the restriction that iOS has on not doing a backup in the manner you wish.

There is software that basically spends all day guessing it. I had to do this once when I remembered most of the password but forgot exactly it (forget which one I used). You can put in perimeters o speed things up like 12 characters no numbers no special characters. And when it guesses it you pay for the program and can unhindered the password.


Disappearing dock and menu bar only on other desktops The dock and menu bar auto hide only on desktops other than DT 1. The preference button has no effect. OSX 10.11.1

I'm having the same problem, my dock and menu bar hides, which started a couple of days ago.


How do I watch Youtube videos without Flash on Safari? Is there a way to watch Youtube videos without Flash installed on Safari?

If not, are there any other solutions?

Yes, most YouTube videos are also available as HTML5 videos. You need to sign in to YouTube and join the HTML5 trial -- see http://www.youtube.com/html5 for details.

These plugins should also work with Safari+Ninjakit:

http://isebaro.com/viewtube/

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/169665


Animated gif as user picture in OS X? How can I set an animated gif as user picture in OS X? Is it possible?

It isn't possible. When you specify an account picture, macOS will automatically convert the image file to .tiff file format and save it in the cache. Unlike .gif, .tiff is a single-image file format, so once your .gif file is converted, the animation will be lost.

All you’ll need to do is download GIFPaper (Dropbox link).

As described in How to Use an Animated GIF as Wallpaper on Your Mac install the preference pane, and then head into System Settings. In System Settings, you’ll find the new GIFPaper option. Click it, then pick the GIF you want to use. It will automatically load up.

If you want the animated GIF as your default wallpaper, you’ll need to also add the GIFPaperAgent app to your Mac login items. Otherwise it wll go back to your default normal wallpaper when you log in again (which coincidentally is also the only way to turn it off).


iPhone 8 Plus (iOS 11.4) is frozen on emergency SOS screen Last evening I tried to add a system macroscript (Switch Control) recipe. After that my iPhone wasn't responding to any of touch moves. I managed to unlock it with Touch ID but I failed a couple of times and now it requires a password. I tried this:

 Subtle click the volume UP button.
 Subtle click the volume DOWN button.
 Hold the startup button until you see apple logo.

Instead of force restart I'm stuck in emergency SOS screen mode. Touch interface doesn't work, force restart is not possible now. What do I do?

iOS 11.4 is currently under development and you have either a developer or public beta installed on your device. Beta version of iOS are not guaranteed to work without issues.

Try restarting the device. If the issue persists, and it is hindering your workflow, it is recommended you restore the device to current public release of iOS, i.e. iOS 11.3.1.

You can share any observations and issue with Apple, via the Feedback app installed on your device.

iOS 11.4 is the beta vision, so go feedback and reboot


Where are the iCloud Drive Libraries icons located? Some apps, like Preview, Pages, or Keynote have folders with different default preview icons publicly visible in the iCloud Drive folder. Where are those icons stored?

Ok, I found it. iCloud daemon (bird) stores info of all the iCloud containers in:

~/Library/Application Support/CloudDocs/session/containers

The info is stored in a plist file with the name of the container for example:

iCloud.com.pvieito.Example.plist

And the icons are stored in a folder with the name of the container:

iCloud.com.pvieito.Example/40x40_iOS.png
iCloud.com.pvieito.Example/80x80_iOS.png
iCloud.com.pvieito.Example/120x120_iOS.png

All Mac Icons are stored here:

Open a new Finder window from the OS X Desktop and hit Command+Shift+G (or go to the “Go” menu and choose “Go To Folder”. Then paste this in:

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/

You should find what you're looking for in there.

Edit: If you can't find what you're looking for above, it must be the app icon, which you should be able to find here: /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources/


How can I easily transfer videos from iPhone to iPad iPhone records nicer videos than iPad, but working with iMovie on iPad is more pleasant than on iPhone. How can I easily transfer recorded videos from iPhone to iPad, preferably without using a computer?

There are many ways to share photos easily like Photo Stream and direct device to device beaming using the iPhoto app, but these do not work (yet) for videos.

If you do not use iCloud and would like access on a PC or a web browser then you can use DropBox, this free app (sign up required) will allow you to save photos and videos to a folder in the cloud. You can access this folder on both iPhone, iPad and also your computer.

You also have to give Dropbox permission to access your photos from the iPhone app

In the app go to Uploads, (on the bottom)
Click the + button
Allow access to your photos
tap on the videos you wish to put onto your iPad
choose a folder to upload them into(you can create new folders here too.
Choose the folder and upload.
Wait a short time and navigate to the file using DropBox on the iPad. you can then save the video tyo your videos and open in iMovie.

The benefit of this over using iCloud is that you are instantly starting the process, iCloud and photostream can take a few minutes to start the sync process, you also have th eoption to be able to open the videos on a web browser, which you cannot do on iCloud.com

If you have Apple's iPhoto for iOS you can "beam" photos and movies between devices.

Some tutorials:

How-to: Beam your photos with iPhoto for iOS @ TUAW
How to set up and use iPhoto Beam on iOS @ cnet

They describe how to do it with photos but movies should work as well.


Connection adapter availability How can I connect an older iPod touch second generation to a lightning dock?
The iPod has a 30 pin connector and the dock is a lightning connection.

I found a link to this adapter on an Apple forum. It could be what you're looking for.

Sorry but I didn't understand the question correct the first time.

Adapters from linghtning to 30-pins are not officially supported by apple.

When buying such an adapter could also result in stop working when you do not expect it.

For this problem Apple has introduced the

30-pins to lightning adapter

30-pins to lightning cable

These products have a chip inside that garuantees that the adapters keep working, even after software updates.

These products also support sending sound and video through the adapter/cable

These are the links to the products:

30-pins to lightning adapter

30-pins to lightning cable

Keep in mind that there are cheaper, non official adapters for this. The reason because they are cheaper is because they don't have a chip inside. It could be possible that those products stop working when you do not expect it, so use at your own risk.


Is there a TODO list app for mac you can change Font Size? You can't do it, in wunderlist, reminders, any.do, etc.

You really need to ruin your eyes to read you notes.

With OmniFocus you can change the font and display styles with a ton of options.

Google Keep might have a default text size that is large enough.


Earthed (Grounded) Stubby Plug for MacBook AC Adapter Much hay has been made of the apparent grounding issue while using the stubby plug on a MacBook AC adapter.

While I understand it is completely safe to have a bit of grounding flowing through the user, those of us who live and work in the tropics would love to find a grounded (earthed) stubby plug adapter.

I see no reason this shouldn't exist, given that the longer cable is grounded via the metal stump on the AC adapter, but I haven't found one.

Notably, I am in Australia, where the plug head doesn't fold over anyhow, but I'd also love a US version.

I have only just discovered this problem with a 2017 MacBook Pro. I get a tingling feeling from the MacBook and realised that the earth part of the apple UK 13 amp plug is a dummy (not connected with the circular locking spur on the charger unit) but I noticed on my early MacBook Air that there was an earth connector on the apple plug and so I swapped it and now I do not have the tingling problem. I do have it on the Air with the new "improved" apple plug.

I found a product with Grounded Plug (duckhead) as shown in the picture below that is a Schuko type for EU.
The grounding function is activated when the Apple Power Adapter ground pin and the plug ground pin are combined.

It says that you can buy it on Amazon now.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08JYWKTZ3?ref=myi_title_dp&th=1
Doodle Plug is available for Apple MacBook, iPad chargers in EU countries (Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Greece, etc.).

Available for all Apple Chargers (Magsafe, USB Power adapters) with
ground pins
Anti-static and device protection while charging Apple products
Compatible with both Schuko type outlets, including the EU and Korea
Significantly reduce iPad and iPhone touch errors (including Apple
Pencil) while charging
Reduces the noise of earphones or speakers when charging